"Why didn’t you fight?" one Governing Council member asked Hussein as their meeting ended. Hussein gestured toward the U.S. soldiers guarding him and asked his own question: "Would you fight them?"

When the soldiers first found Saddam, he raised his hands above his head, military officials said. "I am Saddam Hussein," he said, according to the officials. "I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate." The U.S. soldiers reportedly responded: "President Bush sends his regards."

SNOW: Can Iraq be fully secure as long as he is unaccounted for?

RUMSFELD: Oh, I think so, yeah. He’s not running Iraq. Let there be no doubt, he and his crowd are gone. They’re either in a tunnel some place, or in a basement hiding. We’ll find him, if he’s alive.

When asked “How are you?” said the official, Saddam responded, “I am sad because my people are in bondage.” When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, “If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?”

[Iraqi Governing Council member] Mr. Rubaie said: "One thing which is very important is that this man had with him underground when they arrested him two AK-47’s and did not shoot one bullet. I told him, `You keep on saying that you are a brave man and a proud Arab.’ I said, `When they arrested you why didn’t you shoot one bullet? You are a coward.’ And he started to use very colorful language. Basically, he used all his French."

"It’s a black day in history," said Sadiq Husam, 33, a taxi driver in Ramallah, West Bank seat of the Palestinian Authority. "I am saying so not because Saddam is an Arab, but because he is the only man who said no to American injustice in the Middle East," he said.