Posted on 01/24/2008 12:42:30 PM PST by james500
Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.
Piro, in his first television interview, relays this and other revelations to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley this Sunday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Piro spent almost seven months debriefing Saddam in a plan based on winning his confidence by convincing him that Piro was an important envoy who answered to President Bush. This and being Saddam's sole provider of items like writing materials and toiletries made the toppled Iraqi president open up to Piro, a Lebanese-American and one of the few FBI agents who spoke Arabic. "He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack," says Piro. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." "He didn't believe the U.S. would invade?" asks Pelley, "No, not initially," answers Piro.
Once the invasion was certain, says Piro, Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the invaders for two weeks. "And at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war," Piro tells Pelley. But Piro isn’t convinced that the insurgency was Saddam's plan. "Well, he would like to take credit for the insurgency," says Piro.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
“He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack,”
Confusing Bush with Clinton is perhaps the greatest miscalculation one can make.
As CBS is presenting this, I want to see all the raw footage of the interview, the stuff left on the cutting room floor. After all, CBS’s integrity is far beneath that of your average Weekly World News.
Yep. And ol' Saddam isn't even around to regret it anymore.
Quack like a duck, dress like a duck, get shot like a duck.
Well, we all make mistakes.
From the “too dumb to run a 3rd world kleptocracy” files, no doubt...
Hmmm..I seem to remember that it was Saddam's army that invaded Iran in 1980, not the other way around.
Not that I really care.....
So much for the “Bush lied” crap. This explains why Saddam would want to keep the world believing that Iraq had WMDs. Only it backfired on him.
'Twas.
For many Iraqis, it was the first clue that their new dictator was also an idiot.
Ya think?
“George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.”
I am sure there must be some agreement in place to keep what an FBI agent knows out of the public discussion.
This idea that he kept it a secret is pure BS. His people claimed that everything had been destroyed all along. No one believed him, that was the problem. He refused to produce the proof, and he interfered with the inspectors.
If he really thought that he had a secret to tell, but didn’t want Iran to know, he could have easily told us without telling Iran.
But..But...Bubba had his reasons, too....
Election eve 1996: US jets fire on Iraqi radar sites
January 26, 1998: President goes on TV to deny Lewinsky affair; sends top officials on tour to build support for attack on Iraq. Warns Hussein not to "defy the will of the world."
June 30, 1998: Judge Suzan Webber Wright orders unsealing of Clinton's Jones case deposition; US jets fire on Iraqi radar sites.
August 20, 1998: Monica Lewinsky appears before grand jury; Clinton attacks alleged terrorist centers in Sudan and Afghanistan.
November 13, 1998: Clinton settles Paula Jones suit for $850,000; Clinton orders, then aborts, massive missile attack on Iraq.
Impeachment eve 1998: Clinton launches massive missile attack on Iraq.
You still never hear a bad word from the media about Saddam. Obviously he was stupid, crazy and dangerous. Yet here we have CBS informing us that Saddam had his reason and that’s that.
If it were a Hill or even a WJC admin, the talking point that the invasion was needed because of Saddam’s CALLED BLUFF would be memorized syllable by syllable across the print and broadcast MSM. Never bluff a Texan. Actually shame on W and his folks for being so pathetic in defending their actions. Ronaldus Maximus would have had the people behind the US and our boys the whole time. But at least many I know are finally coming around and the denial is fading.
I don't understand why for so many people taking out Saddam would only be justified if he had "stockpiles" of WMD.
The Russians, Chinese and French had made clear that UN sanctions would be ended before much longer and leftist agitators were pushing for that (remember the "1.5 million Iraqi children dying each year because of the sanctions"?). Saddam was pulling off massive bribery in the biggest financial scam in history through oil-for-food.
Isn't the best time to take him out BEFORE he has stockpiles of WMD ready for use?
Confusing Bush with Clinton is perhaps the greatest miscalculation one can make.
This is exactly why we need a keep-us-on-offense-Republican in office. If one of the dems was in office, the worlds dictators (Assad, Ahmedinijad, Il etc...) would assess every situation like Saddaam did.
It's like a guy who gets into bar fights and thinks he can box. The guys he is used to fighting have no stomach. Once he steps into the ring with a professional fighter, he realizes he is out of his league.
Sadaam bullied around the US, the UN and took their best punches. When he got attacked by someone who was fighting for keeps, he got his butt kicked.
More importantly, neither are his sons!
I remember the libs telling us that Saddam would never use weapons of mass destruction because he’d know that if he did, we’d destroy him, and no matter how irrational he might seem, he was not self-destructive.
Of course, he did end up destroying himself, even though he really did not have WMD. So it appears that he was even more irrational than we thought.
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