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Saddam capture: made for TV, "based" on reality.

Remember Jessica Lynch? Breathless reports of a daring rescue, led by brave American troops, and documented by video clips supplied by the Pentagon? Later, it turned out that much of the story of Jessica’s capture was pure propagandistic fantasy. Well, here we go again:

Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said.

Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.

The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time."

Here’s more, this time from Scotland’s Sunday Herald:

It was 3.15pm Washington time when Donald Rumsfeld called George W Bush at Camp David. “Mr President, first reports are not always accurate,” he began. “But we think we may have him.”

First reports – indeed the very first report of Saddam’s capture – were also coming out elsewhere. Jalal Talabani chose to leak the news and details of Rasul Ali’s role in the deployment to the Iranian media and to be interviewed by them.

By early Sunday – way before Saddam’s capture was being reported by the mainstream Western press – the Kurdish media ran the following news wire:

“Saddam Hussein, the former President of the Iraqi regime, was captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. A special intelligence unit led by Qusrat Rasul Ali, a high-ranking member of the PUK, found Saddam Hussein in the city of Tikrit, his birthplace. Qusrat’s team was accompanied by a group of US soldiers. Further details of the capture will emerge during the day; but the global Kurdish party is about to begin!”

By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the emphasis had changed, and the ousted Iraqi president had been “captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters.”

Rasul Ali himself, meanwhile, had already been on air at the Iranian satellite station al-Alam insisting that his “PUK fighters sealed the area off before the arrival of the US forces”.

By late Sunday as the story went global, the Kurdish role was reduced to a supportive one in what was described by the Pentagon and US military officials as a “joint operation”. The Americans now somewhat reluctantly were admitting that PUK fighters were on the ground alongside them , while PUK sources were making more considered statements and playing down their precise role.

So just who did get to Saddam first, the Kurds or the Americans? And if indeed it was a joint operation would it have been possible at all without the intelligence and on-the-ground participation of Rasul Ali and his special forces?

If the PUK themselves pulled off Saddam’s capture, there would be much to gain from taking the $25m bounty and any political guarantees the Americans might reward them with to keep schtum. What’s more, Jalal Talabani’s links to Tehran have always worried Washington, and having his party grab the grand prize from beneath their noses would be awkward to say the least.

“It’s mutually worth it to us and the Americans. We need assurances for the future and they need the kudos of getting Saddam,” admitted a Kurdish source on condition of anonymity. It would be all to easy to dismiss the questions surrounding the PUK role as conspiracy theory. After all, almost every major event that affects the Arab world prompts tales that are quickly woven into intricate shapes and patterns, to demonstrate innocence, seek credit or apportion blame. Saddam’s capture is no exception.

Of the numerous and more exotic theories surrounding events leading to Saddam’s arrest, one originates on a website many believe edited by former Israeli intelligence agents, but which often turns up inside information about the Middle East that proves to be accurate.

According to Debka.com, there is a possibility that Saddam was held for up to three weeks in al-Dwar by a Kurdish splinter group while they negotiated a handover to the Americans in return for the $25m reward. This, the writers say would explain his dishevelled and disorientated appearance.
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In the end serious questions remain about the Kurdish role and whether at last Sunday’s Baghdad press conference, Paul Bremer was telling the whole truth . Or is it a case of “ladies and gentlemen we got him,” – with a little more help from our Kurdish friends than might be politically expedient to admit?