Mar 18, 2004
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein thinks he is smarter than his interrogators, but the United States has extracted from the world's most famous captive much that might be used at his trial, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
"He's turned out (to be) a pretty wily guy who seems to be enjoying the give-and-take with his interlocutors. He sure thinks he's smarter than everyone else, that's for sure," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in an interview.
The No. 2 State Department official said earlier this week Saddam was giving up little information but on Thursday he explained there were also leads from the interrogation that could be analyzed to produce evidence.
"I've seen some of the results of these debriefs and we've got a lot of dots to connect before we throw these out publicly," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Armitage did not say in what areas CIA-led interrogators had made progress since U.S. troops hauled the ousted Iraqi leader from a hiding hole in the ground in December.
But officials have said a main focus of questioning is to understand how the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupiers is run, as well as unearthing evidence to prosecute Saddam for an array of crimes.
Armitage said he was confident the 66-year-old, who was declared a prisoner of war in January, would be successfully prosecuted in Iraq.
"There's a good deal, I think, of interest in Iraq for seeing the tyrant finally brought to his knees," he said.
Originally Posted by Sockfucker
