Wise-cracking Saddam Hussein taunted America over its ‘faulty’ WMDs intelligence and issued chilling warning about governing Iraq
CIA interrogator John Nixon grilled the fearsome tyrant following his capture in December 2003
SADDAM Hussein taunted America about their 'faulty' WMDs intelligence and issued a chilling warning about the difficulties of governing Iraq.
Following his capture by US troops in December 2003, CIA interrogator John Nixon was able to interview the ruthless Iraqi dictator.
Speaking with the , Nixon reveals how the despot poked fun at Washington's claims he had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Branding Americans “ignorant hooligans”, the wisecracking tyrant said to Nixon: “You found a traitor who led you to Saddam Hussein. Isn’t there one traitor who can tell you where the WMDs are?”
A shaggy-bearded Hussein, who was identified by his tribal tattoos and a droopy lower lip, declared Iraq did not have a relationship with Osama bin Laden and had no role in the 9/11 terror attacks.
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When America invaded Iraq in March 2003, Republican President George W Bush’s administration claimed Hussein’s had WMDs and supported Islamic terrorists involved in the September 11 atrocities.
But Hussein slammed any suggestion that he was involved with bin Laden and insisted Bush wanted to invade Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War which was led by his father President George Bush Sr.
He said: “But the American President [George W Bush] said Iraq wanted to attack his daddy and said we had weapons of mass destruction.”
In a surprising exchange, Hussein told Nixon that countries suffered from a lack of “listening and understanding” and that he did not exclude himself from blame.
The hulking 6ft1inch dictator also issued a stark warning to his American captors.
He said: “You are going to fail. You are going to find that it is not so easy to govern Iraq.
“Because you do not know the language, the history, and the Arab mind.”
Nixon revealed that Hussein went ballistic when he asked him about his notorious chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja – located in the north east of Iraq.
He claimed he was not responsible for the massacre which killed thousands of innocent people in 1988 during the Iran Iraq war.
Nixon said an ageing Hussein seemed "cut off" from his own government and did not know what was happening in Iraq during his final years before his capture.
Hussein was executed in 2006 and Nixon was asked to brief President Bush about his time with the despot the following year.
Nixon revealed that at the end of the meeting, Bush made a joke about whether Hussein had told him where he kept his chemical weapons.
The CIA interrogator called the former President an “a**hole” and thought his attitude was inappropriate considering the amount of people who had died as a result of the 2003 invasion.
Nixon slammed Bush for 'blaming' the CIA for its "faulty" intelligence in his 2010 memoir claiming the Republican only heard "what he wanted to hear".
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