Exactly eight years ago Tuesday, when ousted Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein crawled out of a six-foot underground spider hole to face his American captors, he resisted a bit too much and ended up with a bloody mouth and eye, according to a new and comprehensive book on the capture.
In We Got Him! A Memoir of the Hunt and Capture of Saddam Hussein by a commander involved in the search, Hussein is described as holding up one hand at a time, but not both at the same time, when his tiny hole was opened on a farm near Tikrit.
Retired Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who helped plot the Dec. 13, 2003 capture, tells that "there was much cursing and bantering between the translator and Saddam. Tempers flared. Finding nothing on Saddam, {special operations forces} began to inspect him for known physical marks. Angry, he attempted to shove the soldiers away. That was a stupid thing to do. He was immediately 'encouraged' to cooperate. With his mouth bleeding and a cut above his eye, he became much more cooperative."
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