Saddam Hussein has been “playing with his questioners”, according to a senior official in Washington quoted by the Sunday edition of the Times of London. According to the report, weeks of grilling by a team of CIA and FBI agents has failed to produce a single incriminating statement that might be used at the captured Iraqi leader’s trial.
“There is frustration at the Pentagon that the interrogators are not making better progress,” the official was quoted as saying.
Concern is growing in Washington that orthodox interrogation techniques have had no effect on Saddam. According to the newspaper, the CIA is believed to have initially employed sleep deprivation and other disorientation techniques. The lights in his cell have been kept on, then switched off for days at a time. The temperature has been changed from freezing to very hot, the report added.
Meanwhile, the same newspaper reported that the wife of Saddam has been given sanctuary in a royal palace in Qatar following the intervention of one of the emir’s wives.
Sajida Hussein, who escaped from Iraq a year ago, flew to Qatar last week from Syria, where she had been in hiding, a source close to the family was quoted as saying by the British paper. She was accompanied by her two sisters, her youngest daughter Hala, two grandchildren and several close friends. A similar report appeared last week in the London-based Al Hayat newspaper.
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
