Rumsfeld: CIA takes control of Saddam interrogation ( 2003-12-17 14:23) (Agencies)
The CIA has taken control of the interrogation of
Saddam Hussein , U.S. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. And he defended releasing film of the
grubby former Iraqi dictator after his capture.
Rumsfeld refused to say whether or not a bearded Saddam, pulled from a hole
in the ground by U.S. troops in Iraq over the weekend, was cooperating with
his captors.
Heaping scorn on captured Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tells reporters
at the Pentagon that the former leader was caught like a 'common
fugitive,' hiding in a hole, in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2003.
Rumsfeld says the CIA will take the lead in interrogating
Saddam. [AP]
"I have asked (CIA Director)
George Tenet to be responsible for the handling of the interrogation of Saddam
Hussein," the secretary told reporters, stressing that the civilian spy agency
was better for the task than the military.
"He (Tenet) and his people will be the regulator over the interrogations --
who will do it, the questions that will get posed, the management of the
information that flows from those interrogations. And my instinct is to leave it
there," Rumsfeld said.
Pressed at a Pentagon briefing about reports that Saddam was being
cooperative or defiant, the secretary said he would not comment on what some
U.S. military officers were saying in Iraq and Washington.
"I think that characterizing his general relationship with his captors would
probably be -- the best word would be -- resigned," he said.
But Rumsfeld reacted sharply when pressed by reporters on whether almost
immediately releasing film to the world of an apparently confused Saddam being
examined by a U.S. military doctor was a violation of the Geneva Conventions on
treatment of captives.
'WE OPT FOR SAVING LIVES'
"If lives can be saved by physical proof that that man is off the street, out
of commission, never to return, then we opt for saving lives. And in no way can
that be considered even up on the edge of the Geneva Convention protections," he
snapped.
"He is being accorded the protection of a POW (prisoner of war), but he's not
being legally described as one at this stage. He clearly is being treated under
the Geneva Convention, with the protections of the Geneva Convention and is
being treated humanely."
A top Vatican official said on Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for
Saddam and criticized the U.S. military for showing the video footage.
"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth
as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," said Cardinal
Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department and a former
papal envoy to the United Nations.
Rumsfeld also defended allowing some members of the current Iraqi Governing
Council to question Saddam and former members of his fallen government to help
identify him.
The Geneva Conventions forbid captors from holding their captives up to
public contempt, but Rumsfeld said the meetings were arranged because the U.S.
military did not immediately have DNA evidence confirming that the
prisoner was Saddam.
"It is not a matter of parading various people before him for the sake of
curiosity ... the decision was made to have him publicly identified," he said.
Rumsfeld told reporters that now decisions had been made yet on the status of
Saddam, but that was likely to be decided by a committee of representatives of
U.S. government agencies.
