DU Fodder: Was Saddam actually captured on December 13?

al Bawaba ^ | December 18 2003 | Unknown

[risk]

Was Saddam actually captured on December 13?

Nearly a week after the arrest of Saddam Hussein, some serious questions regarding the ousted leader's capture have started to emerge; questions that may unfortunately remain unanswered. Analysts, journalists and Muslims all over the world are casting heavy doubts on the official U.S. version of Saddam Hussein's seizure.

...

Another story circulating on the streets of Baghdad concerns a photograph of two American soldiers standing beside a date palm tree. The photo was supposedly taken on the day of Saddam's capture. However, according to the story, any Iraqi would know that this picture was a fake, because date palms are usually harvested in the summer time. In any case, un-harvested dates fall off the tree before December, and even if they don't, they are brown and dry, not yellow, as they are in the photograph.

...

(Albawaba.com)

[risk]

tinfoil ping! LOL, yellow dates!

[Aeronaut]

Oh please.....

[Principled]

Isn't it likely that we would havd delayed publication of his capture in order to further expoit any intel?

[PaulJ]

Yellow dates,yellow cake; the plot thickens.

[Lazamataz]

yellow dates

Yes, I was in Bangkok once. I didn't think I was being followed.

[Ophiucus]

Umhmmm...and the Moon landing was filmed in Arizona....

[babble-on]

the next day they took news crews from all over out there. These photos are not from the capture itself, they are from the news crew re-enactments. In order for this conspiracy to be true, 100% of the media including photographers producers and the dude with the jacket standing in the hole would have to be in on it.

[risk]

You win the irony prize :)

[MEG33]

Hammorabi's Iraqi Blog has the same picture.He says the dates should be brown by now but lack of water or fertilizr may account for it.

It is probably not important to our military,but conspiracy theories are as widespread over there(the Middle East) as they once were on Free Republic...;).

The journalists who took pictures could confirm they were taking pictures on a certain date...but nothing will deter the conspiracy buffs.

[BCrago66]

Just scanning the story, it isn't a completely crazy conspiracy theory. It seems to be alleging that the US held Saddam for a few days before informing the media. Worng - because there's no way we could have prevented the story from getting out - but not crazy.

A somewhat more plausible theory is the one from Debka.com - that some 3rd party was keeping Saddam captive in the spider hole before Americans found him.

[mystery-ak]

LOL...this is too funny....we have over 140,000 troops in theater right now...if this was the case, the news would have spread quickly throughout Iraq.

[MEG33]

The dates ,they say on an Iraqi blog, should have been brown by September.(unless they were'n't fertilized or watered)The newsmedia was there and took pictures..they can confirm the date the dates were filmed.

[NYpeanut]

Say, I think that's my uncle Tom in that hole! What was he doing in Tikrit when he told my auint he was skiing???

[BCrago66]

Whoops - looks like they're claming Saddam was found in the summer. Never mind :)

Plus the theory would then be inconsistent with another thing the conspiracy theorists keep bringing up: How did the beard get so long? It couldn't have grown that long from February - when Saddam was last seen during the war - and last summer.

[risk]

but nothing will deter the conspiracy buffs.

Exactly! But hey, some DU people seem to BELIEVE it's all a huge deception, intended to bring us all that much closer to the collapse of democracy in our republic. After all, Bush is the Dajjal.

[MEG33]

It's all a CONSPIRACY,I tell you!!....;)

[yoe]

So? It was a good year for dates and Elvis was there also .....

[Prodigal Son]

If you look through a lot of the photos you will note that many of the soldiers are wearing parts of their cold weather gear- gore-tex jackets and neck-overs. No way would they be wearing those things in the middle of summer.

[risk]

No way would they be wearing those things in the middle of summer.

Hey, the great Dajjal has hyper-threaded, super-cooling duds!