Interrogation of Saddam Hussein

Detailed questioning covered the Iran–Iraq War and his use of chemical weapons against Iranians. Saddam denied repeated assertions by his interrogator of a current weapons of mass destruction capability in Iraq, yet had resisted UN weapons inspections because he "was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for his refusal to allow U.N. inspectors back into Iraq," according to the reports. The former leader reportedly maintained that he did not collaborate with Al-Qaeda, as had been suggested by Bush administration officials in support of its policy of regime change in Iraq. Saddam said he feared Al-Qaeda would have turned on him, and was quoted calling Osama bin Laden a "zealot." The face-to-face sessions were conducted by George Piro, an FBI supervisory special agent (SSA), one of only a few FBI agents who spoke Arabic fluently. Saddam was led to believe that his interrogator was a high-ranking U.S. government official with direct access to U.S. President George W. Bush, when in reality he was in a relatively low-level position at the time. Piro discussed the interrogation process during an interview on the television news magazine 60 Minutes in January 2008. In an official statement, a senior FBI official in Piro’s chain of command characterized the perceived success of their interrogation of Saddam Hussein as one of the agency's top accomplishments in its 100-year history.

Background

Historical

In 1957, at the age of 20, Saddam Hussein joined the nascent Ba'ath Party, which was founded on a socialist form of Pan-Arabism. After participating in an unsuccessful 1959 assassination attempt on then Prime Minister of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saddam became a fugitive, and eventually fled to Syria and then Egypt. Following the Ba'athists overthrow of the prime minister in the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, and the counter-coup half a year later, Saddam was jailed in Iraq from 1964 to 1966. The Ba'ath Party returned to power after another successful coup in 1968. General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a relative of Saddam Hussein, became president, and Saddam became his deputy. In 1979, Saddam Hussein displaced Bakr, and a little more than a year later, he ordered Iraqi troops to invade Iran, starting the Iran–Iraq War that would continue until 1988. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 led to the 1991 Gulf War. In 1998, Saddam halted Iraqi cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission weapons inspections imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War, and kept UN inspectors out until 2002. In March 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq that quickly toppled the government. Saddam fled the capital Baghdad shortly before it fell in mid-April, and disappeared; he was finally captured on December 13 of that year by U.S. soldiers. Saddam remained in U.S. military custody throughout his subsequent criminal trial. On November 5, 2006, Saddam was found guilty of crimes against humanity, and was turned over to the Iraqi Interim Government for his execution by hanging just before the end of that year, on 30 December.

Controlling agency

When Saddam was initially questioned, he gave his U.S. Army Military Intelligence Corps interrogators only evasive or rhetorical answers. Control of his interrogation was soon transferred from the military intelligence interrogators, who are typically represented in the field by less experienced junior officers trained to obtain operational intelligence, over to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), because of their broader experience and capabilities. While Saddam's official status was initially undetermined pending legal review, the U.S. Defense Department announced that he was classified as a prisoner of war on January 9, 2004. After Saddam was declared a prisoner of war, he had to be repatriated to his home country of Iraq after cessation of hostilities, according to the International Red Cross, who monitors compliance with the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. government had also announced that it wanted to turn him over to a new Iraqi government for a public trial with international observers. The CIA realized early on that covert officers conducting the interrogations could end up being called as witnesses in a future court proceeding, and invited the FBI to take a more active role. Control of the interrogation was finally transferred to FBI agents, who are trained to interview suspects in preparation for prosecutions. The combined interrogation team was composed of CIA analysts and FBI agents, intelligence analysts, language specialists, and a behavioral profiler.

Interrogation methods

The FBI began documenting sessions they characterized as "formal interviews" beginning on February 7. There is little public information available on the interrogations prior to this date since the operations were secret, but one unnamed U.S. official described the process as "a chess game," because Saddam was facing a possible death sentence, and had little incentive to speak. Several experts speaking publicly at the time made similar assessments, and set low expectations for the information that could be obtained from Saddam. Although it was speculated that the CIA would employ multiple interrogators using good cop/bad cop role play, the FBI used a single primary interrogator, SSA George Piro, who built up a rapport with Saddam over time. Piro said that their bond became so strong that he saw Saddam tear up when they said goodbye for the last time.

Piro described how he seated Saddam with "his back against the wall" to reinforce that psychological impression, but denied using any of the enhanced interrogation techniques approved for use by the CIA, because he said it was against FBI policy, and would not have worked in this case. In a 2008 interview with 60 Minutes, he revealed details of how he took total control over the prisoner's situation to create a dependence that he would use to obtain cooperation. He also listened patiently as his subject gave his recollections and interpretation of historical events, appealing to Saddam's sense of self-importance to obtain information. Prisoner of war status placed certain constraints on the permissible interrogation techniques; for example, threats of punishment or offers of improved conditions in return for cooperation were prohibited, according to Ruth Wedgwood, an expert on the Geneva Conventions who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University.