Troops nearly gave up search when they found Saddam

[durutti]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7492015.htm

ADWAR, Iraq - U.S. soldiers searching a farm near here for Saddam Hussein had come up dry once again and were about to leave Saturday when one of them spotted a white rug on the ground near a small tree with red flowers. It looked odd, out in the dirt. They pulled the rug aside.

Underneath was what looked like a mud-panel in the ground. They pried it open and discovered a 6-by-8-foot hole, its entrance braced by lumber. At the bottom was a smaller cubbyhole with a pipe leading up to the ground for air.

And there they found Saddam. He had a white bushy beard and looked "disoriented," said Odierno. He was armed with a pistol, but he didn't use it.

"They just said he was very quiet," said Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, quoting his soldiers. "He got out very quickly."

It was 8:26 p.m. The eight-month hunt for Saddam was over.

As it turned out, Saddam may never have been far from the American troops who finally seized him. The large farm where he was found is less than 10 miles from the luxurious palace complex that the 4th Infantry Division has turned into its headquarters and just a mile from the main road of Adwar, a quiet, dusty town where residents still refer to Saddam as Mr. President.

[htuttle]

1. The real question as far as I'm concerned...

...is WHO put Saddam in the hole?

Read the description carefully, and it's clear that he couldn't have put himself in the hole (and then mudded up the entrance and pulled a rug over it? From inside?). Bit of a 'locked room' mystery there...

I think the Kurds have had him for weeks, and finally got a pay off in exchange for his location.

ps. That might explain Saddam's eagerness to get OUT of the hole as well...

[cosmicaug]

5. Ridiculous!

...is WHO put Saddam in the hole?

Read the description carefully, and it's clear that he couldn't have put himself in the hole (and then mudded up the entrance and pulled a rug over it? From inside?). Bit of a 'locked room' mystery there...

No mystery. Some loyalist helped him, what's so odd about that?

I think the Kurds have had him for weeks, and finally got a pay off in exchange for his location.

ps. That might explain Saddam's eagerness to get OUT of the hole as well...

He was tired of tired running around in a taxi from hole to hole for eight or nine months. Sure, despots find the change of pace fun for a day or two but eventually it grinds a depot down a bit (hint: that sort of sensory deprivation would be considered --and would be used as-- torture under different circumstances).

[mobuto]

6. Um

Presumably one of Saddam's supporters, or at least someone Saddam thought was a supporter of his, hid him in the hole.


Read the description carefully, and it's clear that he couldn't have put himself in the hole (and then mudded up the entrance and pulled a rug over it? From inside?).

That's the whole point. There were other people arrested at the farm.

I think the Kurds have had him for weeks, and finally got a pay off in exchange for his location.

And the Kurds gave him a pistol and new clothes and $750,000 just in case Saddam wanted to go over to their side?

That might explain Saddam's eagerness to get OUT of the hole as well...

What eagerness? I think the US military said he seemed exhausted and resigned to his fate, which seems entirely rational given that he's been running nonstop from American forces for seven months. But my question for you is this: why do you believe that? You take some US military accounts at face value and not others? Because it would appear that you've come up with an argument and you're looking at the accounts of his capture like a kind of smorgasbord - you take what you like and ignore or disparage what you don't.

[maggrwaggr]

2. a nice story. Like the jessica lynch story, the British airways story ...

can't believe a thing these people say, remember, one of their really big things is concocting "stories" for the consumption of the American public

[tom_paine]

3. I'm afraid I agree.

Now that we've entered the Soviet Phase of Bushevik Information Management, it is a near impossible task to ferret out the truth...

[mobuto]

4. This isn't the White House

this is a Major General on the ground. The details here aren't terribly significant - the only thing that's significant is that US forces raided a farm and found Saddam Hussein. Do you think that story is concocted?

[Shadder]

8. Yeah, I do

I think that this administration lies about everything, even when there is clerly no need to. I'll agree that Sadam was captured, but I really think that there is a lot more to this story that we are being told.

I don't trust this group of thugs to tell us the truth about anything.

[mobuto]

11. But then it isn't the Administration that's lying

As I said in the post you're responding to, this is a member of the armed forces speaking about what his own men told him (accurate or inaccurate). This is not a member of the Administration talking. Not that what he's saying is particularly earth-shattering one way or the other.

[54anickel]

7. I remember hearing or reading the original accounts of this and

it wasn't like that at all. They were in the cellar of the house and someone, under questioning pointed to a newly blocked section of wall and said Saddam was behind there. That's when they found the shaft outside.
It might have been on Good Morning America. I'll see if I can "dig" something up.

[ahimsa]

9. Here's the "other" story

Saddam was bricked into his hiding place, he added. “They couldn’t get him out at first and had to dig, from either side of the hole,” said the official. The soldiers finally made a large enough passageway to drag him out.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,561472,00.html

[0007]

10. Here we go again with those story like embellishments, LOL!!

The Jessica story, the British Air liner stoy. What fucking world do these asshole live in? I know, I know - the Rush Limbaugh world and the "Mission Accomplished"

[peekaloo]

12. no mention of the soldier

who was about to drop a grenade down the hole??? :shrug:


Ah, the web of deceit being spun from this spider's hole. }(