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Iraqi interpreter recounts Saddam's capture
Edited for brevity.Back in the Iraq he once fled, Samir couldn't see down the darkened hole enough to see who was hiding there. Acting as a civilian translator for U.S. troops massed a few miles south of Tikrit, the Iraqi-American told the cowering man to surrender or die. Soldiers were ready to pitch a grenade into the pit when the man inside slowly thrust his hands into the light, giving up. When he helped pull the man out, Samir gasped. It was Saddam Hussein. By his account, Samir greeted the deposed ruler - the man with a $25 million bounty on his head as then one of the world's most-wanted fugitives - with a few punches, kicks and profane insults. "I wanted to say, `You did this all to us, and you still don't want to leave Iraq alone,'" said Samir, now living in St. Louis. When the hole was exposed, the mystery man inside repeatedly implored, "Don't shoot, don't kill me!'" "You need to come out before they kill you," Samir shouted into the hole. Eventually, the man stuck one arm into the light, then the other. The former ruler looked haggard, with a wild, graying beard and ratty hair. "He looked old and miserable," Samir says. When Samir called the man names, the ousted ruler retorted, "`Don't talk to me. I'm Saddam Hussein,'" Samir recalled. "I said, `You are nobody.'" I wouldn't say he's a nobody. From what I've heard he's an accomplished poet and gardener of late. Posted by: Dar 2004-08-25 |
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