Saddam Talks

Al Bawaba reveals what Saddam has been saying since his capture. And it seems that he hasn’t changed much at all.

For a start, he is unrepentant.

Ahmad Chalabi, a council member and head of the Iraqi National Congress, who was also in the room, said, “He was quite lucid. He had command of his faculties. He would not apologize to the Iraqi people. He did not deny any of the crimes he was confronted with having done. He tried to justify them.”

—-

When asked about the mass graves of tens of thousands of Iraqis uncovered since Saddam was ousted from power last spring, Rubaie said that Saddam answered, “Ask their relatives. They were thieves and they ran away from the battlefields with Iran and from the battlefields of Kuwait.”

With regards to Kuwait, when asked why he invaded Kuwait in 1990, provoking the first U.S.-led assault on Iraq the next year, he said Kuwait was rightfully a part of Iraq.

“He was not remorseful at all,” Chalabi conveyed. “It was clear he was a complete narcissist who was incapable of showing remorse or sympathy to other human beings.”

—-

During a news conference on Sunday evening, Pachachi said Saddam had tried to justify himself by saying that Iraqis needed a tough ruler. “He tried to justify his crimes by saying that he was a just but firm ruler,” he said.

Apparently, he should have his mouth washed out with soap.

“The world is crazy,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Governing Council member in the room on Sunday. “I was in his torture chamber in 1979 and now he was sitting there powerless in front of me without anybody stopping me from doing anything to him. Just imagine. We were arguing, and he was using very foul language.”

—-

Rubaie said, “One thing which is very important is that this man had with him underground when they arrested him two AK-47s and did not shoot one bullet. I told him, ‘You keep on saying that you are a brave man and a proud Arab.’ I said, ‘When they arrested you, why didn’t you shoot one bullet? You are a coward.’

“And he started to use very colorful language,” Rubaie said. “Basically, he used all his French.”

Ever the prankster, Saddam finds humor in what he did.

Rubaie said he had asked the first question, which, he said, was met with a brutal and dismissive joke. He said he had asked why Saddam had killed two leading Shiite clerics, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr in 1980 and Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr in 1999. The word “sidr” means “chest” in Arabic, and Saddam replied, “Al sidr or ar rijl?” That translates as “The chest or the leg?”

Saddam also suggests that he is, in fact, behind the wave of recent attacks against US troops.

Chalabi said Saddam also suggested that he was behind the recent wave of attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq since his defeat. He said, “‘I gave a speech and I said the Americans can come to Iraq but they can’t occupy it and rule it,’ ” Chalabi said. “He said, ‘I said I would fight them with pistols and I have.’ “He didn’t say it directly but he was trying to take credit for it,” Chalabi said.

The death penalty is too lenient for this man.

Scroll to Top