‘I’m president of Iraq and I’m willing to negotiate’
"President Bush sends his regards," they replied.
Major Brian Reed, operations officer for the first brigade of the Fourth Infantry Division, recounted the story for reporters yesterday at the site where Saddam was found.
The hole contained nothing but an electric strip light and a ventilation fan. The roof was supported by rough wooden beams.
"What we found surprised us," said Colonel James Hickey, the commanding officer of the brigade involved in capturing Saddam. "We didn't think it would be so simple."
The former president, who once could take his pick from an array of lavish palaces across Iraq, was pulled from a specially dug hole in the ground just big enough for a man of his average build to crouch in.
The army was led to Saddam's hideaway near a shepherd's hut in an orange grove on the banks of the Tigris River by information from a wealthy man from nearby Tikrit arrested in a raid on Saturday.
Colonel Hickey declined to identify the source.
It was at least the 10th time American troops in Tikrit had headed out on a mission hoping to capture the man they refer to variously as BL1 (black list one) or HVT1 (high-value target one), Col Hickey said.
On finding nothing in the two farmhouses they were targeting, troops decided to check out the nearby hut.
Special forces raided the hut, a simple two-room construction behind a fence made of dried palm leaves, while regular soldiers sealed off the area. They caught one man trying to escape and another in the hut.
When they discovered the hole, Saddam immediately gave himself up by telling soldiers, in English, who he was. "We were about to clear that UGF (under-ground facility) in a military sort of way," Colonel Hickey said.
American forces usually clear such holes with a hand grenade.
Saddam would have used his "rat hole" as soldiers referred to it to hide in for short periods when troops were in the area.
The hut consisted of one room with two beds and a fridge containing a can of lemonade, a packet of hot dogs, an opened box of Belgian chocolates and a tube of ointment.
Several new pairs of shoes lay in their boxes scattered around the floor. Pinned to the outside wall of the hut was a cardboard box depicting biblical scenes such as the Last Supper and the Madonna and child with the English inscription "God bless our home".
