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Iraq
'Saddam was held by Kurds, drugged and left for US troops'
2003-12-21
Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British tabloid newspaper reported on Sunday. Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam’s son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.
Oh, well, that sounds authoritative, doesn't it?
The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president’s capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, “exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete”. A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal. The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.
How sordid!
An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: “Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time.”
Three unnamed sources, a melodramatic blood feud, unspecified "political advantage" for a political party never heard from before... Sounds like deconstruction to me. I think I'll stick with the painstaking intelligence work and a little luck story.

Update: Al-Jizz has (naturally) picked up the story.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#10  Earlier Debka had Saddam in Beloruss.
Posted by: Shipman   2003-12-21 5:22:16 PM  

#9  No surprize here : the gvt-owned France 3 has also picked it up.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-12-21 3:53:04 PM  

#8  I think my dad had him hostage - the Mars Bars wrappers are his calling card.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-12-21 2:56:23 PM  

#7  Sure, they did what any kidnapper would have done; they left their target with a gun and lots of money. Makes sense.

I read somewhere that DEBKA is having the same sort of hallucination, that Saddam wasn't captured, he was rescued. Some people will believe anything.
Posted by: GKarp   2003-12-21 2:46:29 PM  

#6  They call this a feenjahn story... huh? ...because it looks like it came out of somebody's nether orifice coffeepot.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds)   2003-12-21 1:09:02 PM  

#5  Hey SH---It was a blood fued. They forgot to do all those things on your list. They just took a pint of blood and called it a day.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2003-12-21 12:55:51 PM  

#4  So the tribal kooks thought that it would serve the "blood feud" to drug him and use him for political advantage. Must have flipped the switch from irrational fury to rational calculation somewhere along the line. Here are some other unlikely elements of the story:

1. Tossing in the briefcase full of intelligence documents as a complimentary gift.
2. Failure to cut off Sadaam's testicles or at least his mustache.
3. No bruises in the shape of shoe heels about Sadaam's body.
4. Nobody claiming the $25M
5. Nobody ransommed Sadaam to the resistance for a $1B.
6. Nobody took counter offers from France/Russia.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-12-21 12:04:53 PM  

#3  How comforting to the fedayeen to know that none of their comrades spilled useful info after being captured .....

Uh huh.
Posted by: rkb   2003-12-21 12:01:23 PM  

#2  But I like this intrigue! And we haven't had any delightful conspiracy stories lately.

They call this a feenjahn story because it looks like it came out of somebody's coffeepot.
Posted by: button   2003-12-21 11:52:59 AM  

#1  Yeah, no way the Kurds would have killed saddam if they found him. They also know where Elvis and Tupac are hiding out, but there's no 'blood feud' with them, so they remain at large.
Posted by: 4thInfVet   2003-12-21 11:50:38 AM  

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