Lost and found

Apparently, the idea that Saddam Hussein wasn't exactly captured by the US but rather left there to be found is making the rounds of the more established press. Yahoo! News Singapore says that

Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said.

Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The argument here varies somewhat from that I previously mentioned coming from DEBKAfile, which claims it involved negotiating for the $25 million reward the US offered for Saddam, but they do both claim the involvement of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - which is apparently what was meant by "the Kurdish Patriotic Front."

Josh Marshall has a discussion of the report, in which he says

So, I've had a slew of readers write in to ask, Is there something to this story?

In a word? No.

However, his main argument for debunking the story is the use of "Kurdish Patriotic Front" rather than the correct "Patriotic Union of Kurdistan," leading him to say

the author of the piece, Yvonne Ridley (reporting from Qatar), on the face of it seems not to know what is literally the first thing about Kurdish politics. And that, shall we say, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in her reporting

which strikes me as an awfully thin reed on which to base a such a sweeping conclusion - especially since one wouldn't have to know the first thing about Kurdish politics in order to accurately report a story from an intelligence source. (Should Saddam Hussein be called Saddam? Or Hussein? You see it both ways in major newspapers. Should we reject half the stories mentioning him on the grounds that they don't know "the first thing" about Iraq?)

What seems to clinch it for Marshall, however, is that PUK leader Jalal Talabani told Al Jazeera that

[w]e contributed to trailing and pursuing Saddam Husayn when he used to go from one place to another. We provided the coalition with important information about these places. However, the arrest was carried out by American hands. The American forces carried out the arrest and none of the Peshmerga members took part in the arrest.

But besides the obvious question "well, what else would you expect him to say?" this can easily be read as a classic nondenial denial: Just what does "the arrest" mean in this context, especially since Talabani shortly thereafter says "A PUK surveillance unit was present in the area" at the time of Saddam's capture?

Now, I'm in no way convinced that Saddam was left there to be found. Recall that I called my own thoughts along those lines, which didn't involve the PUK, "speculation" and referred to the DEBKAfile report as "odd, but not beyond reason." But I do think the idea deserved better than the quick dismissal Marshall gave it.

The truth is, I admire and rely on Josh Marshall and his blog is one I highly recommend (even though my last two mentions of it - the other one being here - have been critical). I just think in this case he pulled the trigger before he was sure of his aim. That can be seen in his closing paragraph - and remember, he began by flatly declaring "Is there something to this story? In a word? No."

Let me be clear: I'm not saying there's nothing to this. I haven't had time to make any calls. Anything could be true. And it's entirely possible that there are dimensions to the intel leading to Saddam's capture, which haven't yet been revealed. But none of the publish accounts I've seen strike me as credible or even close to substantiated. So until I see more I assume there's nothing to it.

"There's nothing to it. However, I'm not saying there's nothing to it. But until I see more I assume there's nothing to it."

I'm sorry, but huh?

Addendum: The Sunday Herald of Scotland reported on the involvement of the PUK in finding various Ba'athists hiding out in Iraq.

In an interview with the PUK’s al-Hurriyah radio station last Wednesday, Adil Murad, a member of the PUK’s political bureau, confirmed that the Kurdish unit had been pursuing fugitive Ba’athists for the past months in Mosul, Samarra, Tikrit and areas to the south including al-Dwar where Saddam was eventually cornered. Murad even says that the day before Saddam’s capture he was tipped off by PUK General Thamir al-Sultan, that Saddam would be arrested within the next 72 hours.

Clearly the Kurdish net was closing on Saddam, and PUK head Jalal Talabani and Rasul Ali were once again in the running for US bounty – should any be going.

The story occupies a middle ground between the competing narratives, arguing strongly that the Kurds had been actively hunting for Saddam. It doesn't give support to the "left to be found" story but also rebuts the "we found him" story by indicating that the Kurds, not the US, were the ones who actually located him. An interesting take and one I find fairly persuasive.

Footnote: The link to the Yahoo! story came from Talk Left, a terrific blog focusing on progressive approaches to crime, civil rights, and the courts.