FBI Notes: Iran Was Saddam's Biggest Fear

After his capture, Saddam Hussein told the FBI that he falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.

Saddam also dismissed Osama bin Laden as a "zealot," said he had never personally met the al Qaeda leader and that the Iraqi government didn't cooperate with the terrorist group against the U.S., according to FBI interview notes made public by the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute.

The institute obtained the FBI summaries through a Freedom of Information Act request and posted them on its Web site Wednesday.

The former Iraqi leader was interviewed by the FBI after he was captured in December 2003, nine months after the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq. He was later transferred to Iraqi custody and was hanged in December 2006.

The FBI special agent who interviewed Saddam, George Piro, described their talks in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" last year. Saddam told him he had "miscalculated" former President George W. Bush's intentions and expected only a limited U.S. attack.

"Hussein stated Iraq could have absorbed another United States strike, for he viewed this as less of a threat than exposing themselves to Iran," according to a June 11, 2004, FBI interview report.

Saddam denied having unconventional weapons before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but refused to allow U.N. inspectors to search his country from 1998 until 2002. The inspectors returned to the weapons hunt in November 2002 but still complained that Iraq wasn't cooperating.

[pensacola8-2009]

We all heard the story about a man who saw his brother-in-law with another woman and told his own sister that her husband may be cheating on him. The next thing you know, she files for divorce. Just as it is progressing along, the same man learns that what he really saw wasn't cheating at all. When he learns the truth, he sees his angry sister and her children in the middle of strife and knows he could speak up and stop an unjust divorce and then face some pretty bad music with his own sister for at least a while. He knows it is the right thing to do, but chooses not to do it. The divorce goes through and he watches his sister's family suffering needlessly.

Well that is Bush and Cheney - about Sadaam Hussein. They could have stopped his execution and faced some pretty angry music, but they could have stopped Iraq and the USA from needless suffering. The two trillion dollar war nearly ended capitalism....just over bad judgement.

No intestinal fortitude existed in the White House at the critical time.

Sadaam may have killed his own brother, but Bush and Cheney were no better when they saw the justification for the invasion was not built on a complete truth.

A complete truth is essential to be an effective commander in chief.

History will not be nice to Cheney or Bush for this. It will spin around the world against beliefs that the USA is always a fair and effective world leader.

[Dgunner]

ALL YOU ARM CHAIR SOLDIERS MAKE ME LAUGH SO HARD FROM YOUR IGNORANCE. JUST BEFORE I THROW UP FROM YOUR STUPIDITY.

[pensacola8-2009]

This is not about performance of our military, it is about a foreign policy failure under GOP....and I agree, it made many people around the world throw up. Look a little higher than immediate chain of command. I know active duty persons can't say anything critical about their commander in chief, but civilians can...and they are saying that Bush and Cheney are spineless cowards for not doing the right thing. Look today and see that over 70% of this nation find disgust with the GOP. This is one of many reasons.

[pensacola8-2009]

This news article should be on the front page and thrown into the faces of the GOP and VP Cheney every week until our troops are home. I have long known this fact since reading about it a few months ago on this very web site, but the election was in full steam.

I can not believe President G.W. Bush or Vice President Cheney allowed Iraq to hang their former head of state after knowing this. This is by far the darkest deed of President Bush and Vice President Cheney and the damage to the United States will require many years to repair. This will serve as the cover page of GOP Foreign Policy Failure in the history books for many generations to come. They deserve all the distrust they get from it!

[tmittelstaed]

Saddam killed his own brother less than 1/2 of an hour after his brother got off the plane - after promising up, down & sideways that he had forgiven him, and was letting bygones be bygones. That, and many other reasons like that, is why the US allowed Saddam to be hung.

[gravyboat4000]

by itsjustathought July 2, 2009 9:55 AM PDT
That's because Saddam NEVER considered the possibility that the Supreme Court of the United States of America would SELECT two madman to run the country.


Get over it, for gawdssake.
____

Tell that to the more than 4000 families of lost American service people, Rowdy.

[xalen54]

So why did we hang him then??? xD

[mcintoshlou]

That's because Saddam NEVER considered the possibility that the Supreme Court of the United States of America would SELECT two madman to run the country.
GREAT POST;

right on, the united states was always the biggest threat to world peace,

a rich country owned and operated by a few greed driven wealthy pigs,

AMERICAN DO NOT DESERVE FREEDOM, THEY ARE NOT INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO HANDLE IT

[xalen54]

Someone most certainly thinks their country could be any better than ours.

[ReallyMeanIt]

Saddam lied about WMD and the feeble minded libs still think that Bush did.
Practically the whole world believes saddam has WMD. He even demonstrated by killing hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen.
But as a typical libs, if the fact doesn't fit their story then just ignored it.

[antoniof123]

I am so glad we have removed the neonuts from power next blood bath for them is in 2010 where we will make it that they don't have to work with the Democrats.

We should have listened to our parents they kept the Republcians out of power for 40 years a generation. Looks like they were smarter than we though them to be.

Of course I for one will fix that problem from now on.

[ibsteve2u]

Me, I'm getting tired of righties saying that Obama wants to "redistrubute the wealth."

What do you call jacking executive pay up to over 400 times worker pay, or shifting jobs offshore because wages are cheaper over their and so your cut as CEO or shareholder gets far bigger, or cutting medical and retirement plans, again to increase what the CEO and shareholders get?

What the hell is that, if not "wealth redistribution"?

[Questionews]

And this relates to the story how??

[Questionews]

Let's see if I got this right. They tortured him & torture results in false confessions. He confessed under torture that he didn't have WMD & was afraid of Iran. But it's a false confession, so it must be concluded that he does have WMD & that he's not afraid of Iran!?? But he didn't have WMD so that must mean that we was telling the truth while being tortured, but torture results in false confessions, so that must mean .......................Is it too early for straight shots of Bacardi???