http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=106136&d=27&m=1&y=2008
Sunday 27 January 2008 (19 Muharram 1429)
Saddam's Interrogator Says He Did Not Expect US Attack
Lily Hindy, Associated Press
NEW YORK, 27 January 2008 - Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe
he had weapons of mass destruction to deter rival Iran and did not think the
United States would stage a major invasion, according to an FBI interrogator
who questioned the Iraqi leader after his capture.
Saddam expected only a limited aerial attack by the US and thought he
could remain in control, the FBI special agent, George Piro, told CBS's "60
Minutes" program in an interview to be broadcast today.
"He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions,"
said Piro. "He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of
attack as we did in 1998 ... a four-day aerial attack."
"He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack,"
Piro said.
Saddam publicly denied having unconventional weapons before the US
invasion, but prevented UN inspectors from working in the country from 1998
until 2002 and when they finally returned in November 2002, they often
complained that Iraq wasn't fully cooperating.
Piro, a Lebanese-American who speaks Arabic, debriefed Saddam after he
was found hiding in an underground hideout near his home city north of Baghdad
in December 2003, nine months after the US invasion.
Piro said Saddam also said that he wanted to keep up the illusion that he
had the program in part because he thought it would deter a likely Iranian
invasion.
"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant
Saddam. He thought that (faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians
from reinvading Iraq," Piro told Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes."
Piro added that Saddam had the intention of restarting an Iraqi weapons
program at the time, and had engineers available for chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons.
Piro also mentioned Saddam's revelation during questioning that what
pushed him to invade Kuwait in 1990 was a dishonorable swipe at Iraqi women
made by the Kuwaiti leader, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah.
During the buildup to the invasion, Iraq had accused Kuwait of flooding
the world market with oil and demanded compensation for oil produced from a
disputed area on the border of the two countries.
Piro said that Al-Sabah told the foreign minister of Iraq during a
discussion aimed at resolving some of those conflicts that "he would not stop
doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10
prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait," said Piro
