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Cia will interrogate saddam hussein { December 18 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/17/1071337033781.htmlhttp://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/17/1071337033781.html
CIA to take lead in grilling Saddam
By Dana Priest, Thomas Ricks
Washington
December 18, 2003
The CIA, whose interrogation of al-Qaeda leaders has produced a flow of useful information, will take the lead in questioning Saddam Hussein.
United States officials said that the former Iraqi leader has been uncooperative during early questioning and had not provided truthful information about the Iraqi insurgency or weapons of mass destruction.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who described Saddam as resigned, said he asked CIA director George Tenet to take responsibility for the interrogation because the agency has "the people who have competence in that area, they have professionals in that area".
The CIA team has put together a loose interrogation plan - a script of sorts - approved by headquarters that will help guide them in the months ahead, Administration sources said.
It contains "what buttons to push", one US official said, as well as a detailed, extensive list of questions, backed up with what is known to be true about each subject area.
CIA interrogators will be joined by debriefers from the Defence Intelligence Agency and FBI agents who recently arrived in Baghdad to help investigate and collect evidence at bombing and other crime scenes.
US officials hope to extract information to help them defeat insurgents in Iraq. A document found when Saddam was captured has already proven useful, officials said.
The questioners will also focus on broader concerns. Some defence officials, in particular, believe Saddam has information on international terrorist organisations.
Experts on intelligence interrogations said giving the CIA the lead reflects the wide range of information the US hopes to get from Saddam and that it extends beyond information useful to the military in Iraq.
CIA experts, Mr Rumsfeld said, "know the needs we have in terms of counter-terrorism, they know the threads that have to come up through the needle head". John Rothrock, a former combat interrogator for the air force who later quizzed Soviet defectors for the CIA, said it was likely the interrogation would follow a prescribed course that had been discussed and even practised for months.
Interrogators now should play to his swollen ego and get him to boast about how he fooled the (UN) inspectors.
Former CIA Saddam profiler
It would probably begin with a set of "control questions" for which - unbeknown to Saddam - US officials already had determined correct answers, he said. This would enable the interrogation team to begin to assess whether any apparent attempts at co-operation were genuine.
Jerrold Post, a former Saddam profiler for the CIA and now a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, said his advice was that "interrogators now should play to his swollen ego and get him to boast about how he fooled the (UN) inspectors". Or, he said, they might try to get Saddam to talk about "how recently he fooled the whole world into thinking he had weapons while now they are wondering where they are".
The prospect of a trial, Professor Post said, could provide Saddam with "a potential for greymail", or trying to gain leniency or some other edge by threatening to make public secret or embarrassing information.
With the US having supported Saddam in the 1980s with seed strains for biological weapons and intelligence to help fight Iran, Saddam "has plenty of dirty linen to wash in public, including beyond the United States - the countries that were busy courting him such as France and Russia," Professor Post said.
- Washington Post
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/17/1071337033781.html
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