Interrogation of Saddam Hussein
The interrogation of Saddam Hussein began shortly after his capture by U.S. forces in December 2003, while the deposed president of Iraq was held at the Camp Cropper detention facility at Baghdad International Airport.
"[2] Questioning covered the span of Saddam's political career, from 2003 when he was found hiding in a "spider hole" on a farm near his home town of Tikrit, back to his role in a failed 1959 coup attempt in Iraq, after which he had taken refuge in the very same place, one report noted.
[1] Saddam was led to believe that his interrogator was a high-ranking U.S. government official with direct access to U.S. President George W. Bush, when in reality he was in a relatively low-level position at the time.
After participating in an unsuccessful 1959 assassination attempt on then Prime Minister of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saddam became a fugitive, and eventually fled to Syria and then Egypt.
[17] After Saddam was declared a prisoner of war, he had to be repatriated to his home country of Iraq after cessation of hostilities, according to the International Red Cross, who monitors compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
[17] The CIA realized early on that covert officers conducting the interrogations could end up being called as witnesses in a future court proceeding, and invited the FBI to take a more active role.
[2] There is little public information available on the interrogations prior to this date since the operations were secret, but one unnamed U.S. official described the process as "a chess game," because Saddam was facing a possible death sentence, and had little incentive to speak.
[7][8] Piro described how he seated Saddam with "his back against the wall" to reinforce that psychological impression, but denied using any of the enhanced interrogation techniques approved for use by the CIA, because he said it was against FBI policy,[6] and would not have worked in this case.
[5] Prisoner of war status placed certain constraints on the permissible interrogation techniques; for example, threats of punishment or offers of improved conditions in return for cooperation were prohibited, according to Ruth Wedgwood, an expert on the Geneva Conventions who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
[21] According to the Associated Press: "Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran".
FBI agent Pinto's actual record of a casual conversation with Saddam reads: "Even though Hussein claimed Iraq did not have WMD, the threat from Iran was a major factor as to why he did not allow the return of the UN inspectors.
