Interrogator Shares Saddam's Confessions

Tells 60 Minutes Former Iraqi Dictator Didn't Expect U.S. Invasion

(CBS)  Piro says no coercive interrogation techniques, like sleep deprivation, heat, cold, loud noises, or water boarding were ever used. "It's against FBI policy, first. And wouldn't have really benefited us with someone like Saddam," Piro says.

Why not?

"I think Saddam clearly had demonstrated over his legacy that he would not respond to threats, to any type of fear-based approach," Piro explains.

"So how do you crack a guy like that?" Pelley asks.

"Time," Piro says.

Months of time, during which Piro manipulated Saddam, creating a relationship based on dependency, trust and emotion. Piro alternated between acts of kindness and provocation. He would jar Saddam with video, including pictures of his fall, and the pulling down of his statues.

"I wanted him to get angry. I wanted him to see those videos and to get angry," Piro explains. "You want to take him through those various emotions. Happy, angry, sad. When you have someone going through those emotions they're not able to really control themselves. And they're more vulnerable during the interview."

"When he was watching his statue being pulled down, what did you see?" Pelley asks.

"You could see the anger in his face. He would try not to watch. Look down," Piro remembers. "But you could tell he was angered by it. But at the same time he was trying to keep himself under control."

"What does an angry Saddam look like? Angriest you ever saw him," Pelley asks.

"The angriest you ever saw him, his face got extremely red. And his voice changed," Piro recalls.

"The eyes?" Pelley asks.

"A lot of hate in those eyes. We were talking about what led to the invasion of Kuwait. What led him to want to invade Kuwait," Piro says.

That invasion was in 1990. Back then, Saddam accused Kuwait of wrecking Iraq’s economy by stealing oil and demanding repayment of loans. But Piro learned, for the first time, that the brutal invasion was triggered by personal insult.

"What really triggered it for him, according to Saddam, was he had sent his foreign minister to Kuwait to meet with the Emir Al Sabah, the former leader of Kuwait, to try to resolve some of these issues. And the Emir told the foreign minister of Iraq 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. He wanted to punish, he told me, Emir Al Sabah, for saying that," Piro explains.

The U.S. ejected Saddam from Kuwait, leaving the dictator with no love lost for the Bush family. "He didn't like President [George W.] Bush. He would have liked meeting President Reagan. He thought he was a great leader. Honorable man. He liked President Clinton. But he did not like President Bush, the first or the current," Piro says.

Getting to Saddam's secrets depended on patiently undermining the self confidence of a man who was used to total control. Piro saw an opportunity one night when they flew Saddam to a hospital. They loaded him on a helicopter, manacled and wearing a blindfold.

"And once I saw how beautiful Baghdad was in the middle of the night, so I took advantage of it. I allowed him to look out and the lights were on. There was traffic. And it looked like any other major metropolitan city around the world. And for him to see that. And as I mentioned, you know, big Baghdad is moving forward without you. I mean, little things like that didn't require a lot of suggestion on our part. It made its point," Piro recalls.

Piro even used Saddam’s birthday, a former national holiday, to drive home another painful point. "In 2004, no one celebrated his birthday on April 28th. So the only one that really knew and cared was us. I'd brought him some cookies, and we, the FBI, celebrated his birthday for him."

The cookies, Piro says, he got from his own mother. "He loved 'em. I told them they were Lebanese cookies, which, of course, he was a big fan of the Lebanese people, as he said."

Piro says he told Saddam the cookies were from his mother, and that he appreciated it. But when he told his mom about the cookie gift on his return, Piro says, "She actually slapped me. In the back of the head."

Piro’s mother supplied another gift unwittingly: flower seeds. Saddam was given a small plot behind a high fence where he gardened with his bare hands because he couldn't have tools. Piro and Saddam took walks in the tiny garden and what flowed was a series of revelations.

[terrorislam6]

Posted by RexProphet at 12:29 AM : Jan 31, 2008

hahaha

you believe soros paid liars LOL

hahaha

AP Reports ''Bush Lied'' Study Funded by Ultra-leftist George Soros
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/01/23/ap-bush-lied-study-not-revealed-funded-george-soros

bush did tell the truth, choke on it bush haters hahaha

Top Secret: Bush Told the Truth About WMD
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=26457045-1E9E-4795-9D31-0E5B73E74EE9

Foreign Intel Had Identified WMD Sites
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/007528.php

Saddam, Nikita and Virtual Weapons of Mass Destruction:
A Question of Threat Perception and Intelligence Assessment
David B. Rivkin, Jr., and Lee A. Casey
http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue23/Vol2iss23RivkinCasey.html

THE SECURITY COUNCIL, 27 JANUARY 2003:
AN UPDATE ON INSPECTION
Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix
http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/Bx27.htm

[sgw01]

[...and then they took us to an illegal war!]

War was not illegal because it was authorized by Congress, therefore you lied.

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by speakinup at 08:13 PM : Jan 30, 2008

Again, Clinton was cautious and did not take us into an illegal war.

BUSH DID! Get it?

[speakinup]

Rowdy - what the matter - can''t you handle the truth ?

If Bush had lied to get us into a war, why would he not have placed a WMD in Iraq to vindicate himself ?

And, guess what, Clinton made the same remarks BEFORE bush did. But it didn''t make it into Soros'' articles, did it. Gee, I WONDER why ?

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by speakinup at 06:36 PM : Jan 30, 2008

As usual the typical republiCON will point their finger at someone else.

President Bush''s regime lied 935 times...and then they took us to an illegal war!

Not the Clintons, not any other politician mislead by their lies, the responsibility for this war lies directly on the Bush administration.

[speakinup]

yeah Rex, we know all about the Soros funded ''non-profit'' reports that were supposidly ''news'' last week.

You know the 535 references to the Republicans carefully told ''false statements'' which then the far left translated to mean ''lies'' to get us into Iraq.

Funny thing is, Bill and Hillary Clinton weren''t listed as to how many times they said the same things. In FACT, no Democrat was listed. Does that mean they didn''t say these things - nope - it means they weren''t in the ''news''.

Gee, how did that happen.

A little bias reporting by those Soros Puppets maybe ?

[shingles1]

Scott Pelley has a major problem with the truth.

It''s simple. We demanded, under threat of force, that the inspectors be let back in. Saddam allowed the inspectors back in. And then because we didn''t believe Saddam was being truthful or that the inspectors would find anything, we invaded. In other words, it was entirely the US''s decision to invade.

This doesn''t mean that Saddam was blameless...after all, if he had clearly complied with his obligations after the 1st Gulf War none of this would have happened. However, Scott Pelley is completely distorting and being dishonest what happened back in 2002/2003.

Scott Pelley has a history of being "creative" with the facts...meaning that you guys, CBS, really need a special Public Editor just to keep Scott Pelley in line. Otherwise his light grasp of the facts is going to really kick you in the bus someday.

[sandy2497]

Hubba Hubba. He can interrogate me anytime. Whatever the goverment is paying him, it isn''t enough.
I can see why Saddam Hussein was so taken with him.
I''ve read some of the comments that were made and how this was all propaganda put out by the Bush White House. I want to know one thing, were you in the room during the interrogating? Have you read George Tenete''s book about the CIA? If you think they are lying to cover up something, then why don''t you see if you can''t join up and maybe you can do a much better job than they can. I don''t agree with a lot of things that they do also, but to say that this gentleman is nothing but a Bush spokesman is carrying it a little too far. It didn''t take a rocket scientist is know that Saddem Hussein wouldn''t crawl into bed with Bin Ladden, but I guess there are a few in Washington that aren''t rocket scientists, and we know who they are.

[janiceke]

How dare Pelley perpetuate the lies of the Bush Administration! At one time 60 Minutes was a respected TV news magazine -- no longer. It makes me sick to think our country has come to this -- invasion of a country that could not harm the US and had nothing to do with 9/11. My fear is that "journalists" like Pelley will repeat the lies enough and continue to be given a public venue so that they will be able to change the perception of the world at large and the truth will be lost for future generations.

[otionwaves]

'' .. i worked 70+ sudokus in the past month or two, yet reported live from 990 or 1980 spore bloom weed dragon trail fickle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail crossing yseedsberry trail groups while dancing get well feed world get sick tax world hike naked dance dressed porn songs and shopgifting grass and dirt for cures for cancer and other margaritas and traveling eternitys at the speed of thought and shifting shapes and toggleing virtual and realtime and playing song dance skit kit medical you are here maps and zero resistance tai chi aikido yogaerobic inkblot sport and puzzle for life and lunch the musical epic quest to cure the common mortal death and the common immortal life, i don''t miss school at all .. ''

[terrorislam6]

bush did tell the truth, choke on it bush haters hahaha

Top Secret: Bush Told the Truth About WMD
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=26457045-1E9E-4795-9D31-0E5B73E74EE9

Foreign Intel Had Identified WMD Sites
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/007528.php

Saddam, Nikita and Virtual Weapons of Mass Destruction:
A Question of Threat Perception and Intelligence Assessment
David B. Rivkin, Jr., and Lee A. Casey
http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue23/Vol2iss23RivkinCasey.html

THE SECURITY COUNCIL, 27 JANUARY 2003:
AN UPDATE ON INSPECTION
Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix
http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/Bx27.htm

[gslinger3]

Saddam Hussein is no more! Thank You George W Bush! History especially will thank you!

God Bless America!

[drgarya]

As usual, CBS keeps us in the dark about the central part of this story: Saddam Hussein told the truth about his long-gone WMD''s, and Bush decided to wage war, anyhow.

Here''s a great dissection of CBS''s nonsense, from the award-winning, non-compromised journalist, Robert Parry:

CBS Falsifies Iraq War History

By Robert Parry
January 28, 2008

There%u2019s a cynical old saying that the victors write the history. CBS%u2019s %u201C60 Minutes%u201D demonstrated how that process works on Jan. 27 in airing Scott Pelley%u2019s interview with the FBI agent who de-briefed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.


In a world of objective reality, a reporter might say that the United States launched an unprovoked invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, under the false pretense that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, even after Iraq had repeatedly %u2013 and accurately %u2013 announced that its WMD had been destroyed in the 1990s.

On Dec. 7, 2002, Iraq even sent to the United Nations a 12,000-page declaration explaining how its WMD stockpiles had been eliminated. In fall 2002, Hussein%u2019s government also allowed teams of U.N. inspectors into Iraq and gave them free rein to examine any site of their choosing ...

See the rest of Robert Parry''s demolition of "60 Minutes" nonsense at: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/012808.html

[judyschroede]

It''s fascinating that even 60 Minutes could jump so far off track in what was otherwise a great interview. Mr Piro was candid and straightforward, strengths that served him well even as those strengths attracted Saddam into a trap. However, such strength also refutes blind, ideological biases - like Pelley''s and George Bush''s - which will ignore or distort the facts in order to defend an unprovoked war (Iraq), and torture. These Bush policies cannot be justified by your revision of history! Shame on you.

[robertjearle]

nostinkinid- it''s your brain that''s an orwellian nightmare. Thank God you are an impotent ranter and have no power. Saddam said he had them, then that he didn''t, etc. He screwed around with the inspectors, kicked them out, and made a thorough inspection impossible. If he had just done what he agreed to do in the treaty at the end of the first war, he''d still be alive and in power. Too bad.

[stddating]

People can say repeatedly that people lied but I looked at that website about the Administration lying and found out something really wild those "nonprofit" Journalists were "paid" to bring these allegations and their points to the forefront!! Journalists have ethics and anytime that a story is "paid" for it is not considered to be ethical journalism...

###############################
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[stddating]

We must clearly purge the intelligence processing, this is what happened to Germany ... England undermined their intelligence systems, in particular the Abwehr agency structures.

###############################
I''m Charlotte, was once lonely and devasted due to herpes even all the

guys said I am so hot. It was changed since I joined the trusted and

anonymous herpes dating site $$ pozgroup.com $$ I started my hot blog,

upload my wonderful photos,made many friends.... Catch me by WildOne.

[samael2014]

(CBS) For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking. But you are going to hear more than has ever been revealed before.

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE. GEORGE W. BUSH DREW AMERICA TO INVADE IRAQ... THIS IS THE FREAKING LYING AMERICAN PRESS AT ITS FINEST. YOU BIG FREAKING LIEING SACKS OF $HIT AT CBS HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO INTEGRITY WHATSO''*** EVER AND NO PLACE IN OUR DEMOCRACY. AND THEY HAVE NO SHAME IN DOCUMENTING THIS FOR EVERYONE TO SEE.

[pensacola88]

Secretary of State Condelezza Rice failed us.

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by deemsnyd at 12:36 PM : Jan 29, 2008

We have approximately 160,000 soldiers that have covered that country from one piece of sand to another. They have not found one single shred of evidence that there were WMD''s, and maybe one place where they might possibly have been making biological weapons. Plus, don''t you think an Iraqi somewhere wouldn''t have come out by now and pointed to exactly where they were??? Our government would''ve paid MEGA bucks to anybody that could show them such evidence of WMD''s.