U.S. Soldiers Say Saddam 'Friendly'
The AP reports that the July issue of GQ magazine (subscription only) features an interview by Lisa De Paulo with three U.S. soldiers who guarded Saddam after his 2003 capture. They say he's friendly - and a hygiene nut.
Thrust unexpectedly into the role of prison guards for Saddam Hussein, a group of young American soldiers found the deposed Iraqi leader to be a friendly, talkative "clean freak" who loved Raisin Bran for breakfast, did his own laundry and insisted he was still president of Iraq, says a report published on Monday.
Saddam liked Ronald Reagan, thought Clinton was okay, and initially disliked the Bushes:
"The Bush father, son, no good," one of the soldiers, Cpl. Jonathan "Paco" Reese, 22, of Millville, Pa., quotes Saddam as saying. But his fellow GI, Specialist Sean O'Shea, then 19, says Saddam later softened that view. "Towards the end he was saying that he doesn't hold any hard feelings and he just wanted to talk to Bush, to make friends with him," O'Shea, of Minooka, Pa., told the magazine.
A third soldier, Spc. Jesse Dawson, quoted Saddam as saying of Bush, "'He knows I have nothing, no mass weapons. He knows he'll never find them.'"
The soldier's are not breaking rules with the interview. Their agreement with the Government pertains to logistics of Saddam's detention but not their interaction with him.
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