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| Iraq |
| Making Saddam Speak |
| 2003-12-19 |
| Saddam Hussein has finally been caught, but with no letup in the attacks on coalition troops and the Iraqis who are helping them, the clock is ticking to get the former dictator to reveal all his secrets. CIA interrogators are now working on a plan to try to get Saddam to cooperate. "The CIA was given the lead to manage the organization because they have more capacity to do strategic intelligence," said Michael Vickers, a former CIA operations officer. Tactical or battlefield interrogations are normally handled by the military, but "the CIA can bring to bear a lot of psychiatrists, as well as Arabic-speaking operations officers, to do a lot of the sophisticated psychological stuff on Saddam," said Vickers. The expert interrogators will prove useful because officials say Saddam’s grandiose ego has recovered and his defiance has hardened since his humiliating capture over the weekend. "I think the likelihood of Saddam being ’broken’ is remote," said Jerrold Post, a psychologist who once profiled the former Iraqi leader for the CIA. "In fact, I would guesstimate that pressure to ’break him’ will prove to be failures." Saddam’s bedraggled appearance when he was captured should not be taken at face value, Post cautioned. "This is a man who, atop that shattered self, underneath has a defiant psychology that has been hardened over the years," he said. "Indeed, part of his image which he hopes to enshrine in history is of the defiant Arab strongman standing up to the West." U.S. officials say there are a variety of methods the CIA will likely try to make Saddam talk. Interrogators may wake him up at odd hours in order to disorient him and weaken him. They may show him torture videos —the same ones he sent to relatives of his victims — to prove just how strong a case the United States has against him for a trial on charges of crimes against humanity. |
| Posted by:OMER ISHMAIL |
| #4 It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of these iterrogations - and whether we ever learn anything about them ... The guy is clearly a psychopath. They tend to be pretty resistant to reality ... don't know whether we will get through or not. It does depend in part on how far the CIA is willing to go ... |
| Posted by: rkb 2003-12-19 6:06:00 PM |
| #3 If they aren't doin the things I outlined earlier, then they have lost their edge, and someone really pulled their teeth worse than I thought since the early the 90's. There were means available back then for high importance subjects. And the will to use them. Now? I don't know if 8 years of atrophy under Blowjob Bill has been reversed. It already cost us 9/11 and solid shots at Binny. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2003-12-19 9:04:09 AM |
| #2 Yep -- this is all just to keep Chirac calm while we gather evidence against him. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-12-19 8:25:16 AM |
| #1 Actually, I think he's singing like a bird, and all of these are typical CIA lies to make sure the people Saddam is really fingering don't think they've been fingered. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-12-19 7:59:22 AM |