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Red Cross diss Sadam
(oh & Syria Is Next US Target )
from DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
DEBKAfile's Exclusive Middle East sources reveal here the main contents of the Duleimi's briefing to his fellow lawyers and the account of his conversation with Saddam to his journalist friend. The ex-ruler is in good health, the lawyer reported, and says he is in even better shape physically than he was in March 2003 ahead of the war. Now and again he gets sharp twinges of pain in his left shin. Saddam is confined to a cell of five by three meters with no window. Sometimes he is let out to a 15 by 5 meter unroofed hall where he can see the sky. The food he says is good. The American warders do not talk to him but the Iraqi officers who accompany them address him as "Mr. President."

The former Iraqi dictator is cut off from the outside world. Despite some reports, he has no access to newspapers, radio or television. He has received only two letters from his close family, the contents of which were mostly deleted or cut out by the censors. He spends most of his time writing but would not disclose his subjects, except to say that some of it is poetry. Duleimi quoted a line of Saddam's "verse:" "If you can't be the head, don't be the backside because there is nothing there but a tail." He had two main gripes. One was that the Americans will not let him shave his beard despite his repeated requests. He even offered to let a US military barber shave him, but they refused. His theory is that the Americans want to make sure that whenever he appears in public, as he did on June 30, 2004 before an Iraqi investigating judge, he will look confused, unkempt and too low in spirits to bother to shave. His second complaint was against the Red Cross workers. He wanted their visits stopped because he said they are neither polite nor respectful.
Posted by: Classer 2005-01-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=52724