Former Marine: Saddam's Capture Fictionalized.

[reprehensor]

Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction

A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.

Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.

"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.

"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said.

more@link

[ck4829]

1. Why am I angry about this?

I should be used to all the lies by now. It sickens me. Kudos to the Troops who keep us safe and tell the truth despite what the 'liberal' media says. Fox News and even Bush himself are the true Army haters if they can't tell the truth about what happens to our men and women overseas.

[bluestocking_lib]

82. that really doesn't surprise me.

I'm disgusted to be living in a time when I must question every little bit of news I read, it seems even the most mundane of stories are fabricated or doctored. It's all intentional - the government determines what reality should be presented as ; complete fascism.

[pauldp]

2. Seems like they just can't help lying. n/t

[Ganja Ninja]

21. It's like "Never tell the truth when a lie will do as well." n/t

[FreedomAngel82]

27. Of course they had to make up something exciting

:eyes: That story is just so boring for macho Bushie.

[Salviati]

3. Why would they do this?

They're a bunch of pathological liars, they lie even when they don't need to.

[cthrumatrix]

15. it's PR for the prpaganda machine

[monobrau]

32. psyops to demoralize the insurgency

I had a feeling the "hiding in a hole" thing was fabricated when I saw how he looked drugged.

[Griffy]

36. Glorify the military, berate your enemies.. "found in a hole in the dirt".

They do need to lie, because the truth is not what they want their followers to believe, you see, when we try to tell the sheeple this, it will seem like WE are the liars. Its brilliant in a Dr. Evil sorta way, they lie so much that we look foolish jumping up and down crying fraud, liar, murder and fascist, name a few....

[Karenina]

42. Remember "yawning boy"

and the David Letterman dust-up that ensued? :eyes:

American gub'mint or their henchmen in the *corporate media do NOTHING but LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE... and that's the truth, the whole truth and NOTHING but the truth.

[Frederik]

4. Wonderful

A "military production team" manufactured the news story... Wonder what else those production teams have been up to?

[arcane1]

22. Jessica Lynch's rescue, for one

who knows what else? :shrug:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

60. And the fall of Saddam's statue in Baghdad

where about 100 Iraqi expatriots were bussed in for a tight camera angle shot in an otherwise empty square.

[rzemanfl]

75. And her fighting "like a tiger" until she ran out of ammo. n/t

[iconoclastNYC]

5. Right wing rationalization....

It was psyops for the insurgents. The demooralization of having thier leader caught in a hidey hole saved coutless american lives.

The larger issue of having the government lieing to you is lost on these people of course.

[Vladimir]

6. Is he ready to be denounced? n/t

[Norquist Nemesis]

33. Let's see... A Lebanese with 8 other Arabs???

Oh my! The MSM will have a field day if this one takes hold.

[trotsky]

7. Most aggravating quote:

Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole

A "military production team"?!? These bastards learned the lessons of Vietnam, didn't they? Don't let the folks back home see the truth. The fact that they have to go so far to stage an alternate version of something that really isn't that critical is frightening.

Meanwhile, mindless Bushbots back here will never wake up to the fact that they are being manipulated. SADDAM BAD MAN!

[rodeodance]

10. "SH found in a rat hole" has been the mantra since they caught him--the

must made an issue. Has anyone heard this on the "news" yet?
On the other hand, simliar stories have circulated earlier and they have all "died"--the press not getting pumped up about it.

[iamjoy]

8. I Am Skeptical

Not that I can't believe the administration would lie when it suited their purpose, but WHY would they fabricate such a story? How would it serve or help them?

[ck4829]

11. To make Bush look good

Remember how they said Saddam Statues were falling?

Remember everybody with purple fingers?

They want Hussein to look like a barbarian who lives in a hole (he is a murderous tyrant), but making a big deal out of it sort of made Bush look even better.

[Guckert]

12. It made him look more fearful of the mighty Bush. instead of lounging in

a mansion then having the gall to fight Gods chosen leader of the WORLD..
A PR move

[rodeodance]

13. found in a rat hole sounds better than in a house

[lectrobyte]

19. I used to be skeptical, but given their manipulations, less so now...

I don't understand the why of it either, but they go out of their way to spin on a little more BS when for all apparent purposes, it isn't necessary. Remember the Air Force One "encounter" with a British airliner story for the Thanksgiving photo op in Iraq?

[oneold1-4u]

29. The guilty hide in holes!

I could be skeptical about this but, the pres. of the US would wish to make Saddam out to be a filthy, sniveling, hiding, monster and we will know for sure when they find OBL (has to have dialysis) crawling out of some small cramped hole in the ground! He (*) knows he has a few million stupid citizens who will always believe his most absurd, preposterous, media manipulations!

[Frederik]

40. Perception Management

[LynnTheDem]

46. They lied about the Saddam statue toppling and world media were THERE

Remember when Peter Jennings said the truth on-air, how the reporters were right there in the hotel next to the square, how the crowd was small and mostly US troops with "Thanks, suckers!" Chalabi & his men brought up by the Cartel from Basrsa for the event and how the square was blocked off to everyone else and how a US tank actually did the "toppling" and how the USSA media ESPECIALLY FAUX MOOS smeared and slammed Jennings and called him a TERRORIST TRAITOR ANTI-AMERICAN et al?

No, he wasn't a terrorist traitor bloody frigging etcetera; he just TOLD THE TRUTH.

And the ENTIRE USSA MEDIA, ESPECIALLY that UNBIASED FAUX MOOS replayed a billion times a close-up LOOPED VIDEO of The Great Event???

The entire world's media WERE THERE. They SAW IT. THEY FILMED IT.

And that sure didn't stop bushCartel and the USSA media from LYING.

[Guckert]

9. Can you say Jessica Lynch???

[Auntie Bush]

17. That was my first thought too. What a bunch of liars!

[BrklynLiberal]

20. That was my first thought as well.

[CottonBear]

14. More discussion in this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3245163

[DELUSIONAL]

16. Amazing -- they LIE?

It seems like every day a new lie by the Military is exposed.

Which reinforces what I've been saying for years -- ALWAYS expect the military to lie about even the most trivial thing. (Which is why I do NOT believe the US military version about why they shot at the freed Italian Journalist.)

I remember as a kid when I learned this fact of life -- adults in the military LIE. Although kids would get punished for small lies -- we watched the US Navy lie about a rather minor thing. But we all knew that the Navy's version was a lie -- it is the sort of thing that Navy brats would know about. We learned fairly early that all branches of the military employ military PR people -- who spin a story to make that branch of the military look good -- or not look as stupid as a inbred hillbilly (with apologies to inbred hillbillies).

Anyway I learned not to believe anything the military says (meaning military PR spokespeople) -- until it is confirmed by an unbiased 3rd party.

Right from the beginning many people here at DU and other places were skeptical about this story.

[rodeodance]

18. Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops

another verison of how SH was captured (echoes of the past)

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/62977/1/.html

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 21 December 2003 1158 hrs

Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops


LONDON, : 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 newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal,,,,,,.

[FreedomAngel82]

37. So now I wonder

about the Italian reporter.

[TNOE]

23. I have no doubts about this

I remember a video of the rescue - I believe it was on David Icke's website where the commanding officer said something to the effect - now this is the way we're going to play it. I'm sure a search on his site would find the video - I don't have time to look at the moment.

[LynnTheDem]

48. I KNOW the bushCartel version is total fiction.

And if anyone taped the Doug Basham Radio Show from April 2004, you'd know how I KNOW. :D

Wish I'd taped that show.

[napi21]

24. How do we know Sgt. Rabeh is telling the truth?

I believe Shrub & Rummy would enhance the story of the capture to make themselves look better, and SH look worse, but I'm sure there were more soldiers present than just this one. Has anyone coroberated his story? As much as all of us would love the scandal this story would generate, I think we need to be very careful not to assume it's true just because we want it to be true.

How can we find the other soldiers who were present for SH capture?

[hector459]

28. One thing is almost certain, Saddam was placed into that "hole" by his

captors, whoever they were. We didn't "capture" him. He was either captured by Iraqis and held for the US or by some group other than American forces alone.

[Ms. Clio]

31. How do we find the soldiers that were present for Jessica Lynch's rescue?

We don't, because several of them are dead.

[Oilwellian]

41. How many soldiers are coming home and....

talking to the media about their experiences in Iraq? A friend of my son just returned from Iraq and says he had to sign an oath of silence on his experiences there. Perhaps that's why the answer to my question is none.

[Karenina]

44. W-H-H-HAT? WIE BITTE????

Verzeihen Sie mir. Jeden Tag bin ich ein Tag älter, mebbe my lyin' eyes ain't as good as the used to be... Bitte, nochmal, SIGN A W-H-A-T???

[Swamp Rat]

47. Wie gehts Karenina?

Didn'cha know about loyalty oaths and this Bush admin? I betcha the old "lump" in the bed had to sign a bunch of 'em too. :D

[Karenina]

56. Geht's mir NICHT gut, lieber Swamperchen.

The shit is SO FAR BEYOND RIDICULOUS and the hits (wit a bullet) jes' keep on a-comin'!!! MEINE FICKEN FRESSE!!!

[DELUSIONAL]

76. If that photo hasn't been photo shopped -- that woman is drugged!

Probably the only way any women can stand to be near Der Bushita.

[Ms. Clio]

50. An oath of silence???

Damn, these freaks sound more like Mafiosi every day.

[SouthernDem2004]

54. You sure? None of our units that have rotated back have said such a thing

Being in the Guard I know alot of people that have gone and come back as well as alot of friends still there. I have never heard of such an oath. Any link or evidence? I think your sons friend may be pulling someones leg.

[Oilwellian]

57. I really don't know the guy

so can't be totally sure. But what would be his reason for making it up? Also, why haven't we seen ANY of the troops come home and talk publically about their experiences? I think that fact adds credence to what he claims.

[SouthernDem2004]

86. I am not so sure...

Everyone I know talks about it alot. I do not see why you would have to sign anything anyway. They would just order you not to speak. A piece of paper would be pointless.

[LynnTheDem]

51. I'm gonna stay mum until hubby's home

:D

[Ms. Clio]

53. I can totally understand and respect that n/t

[kk897]

25. interesting that Rabeh is currently in Lebanon.

I'm not sure what that means...but it's coincidental.

Nothing is what it seems to be anymore, or so it would seem. Sigh.

[soothsayer]

26. Now that sounds more like it.

[Bluebear]

30. "military production team fabricated film of Saddam's capture in a hole"

Manipulation. Propaganda. IOKIYAR!

[maxsolomon]

34. stay off small planes

and tell everyone you're NOT feeling suicidal.

[BrklynLiberal]

35. Also discussed at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1296972#

and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3245163#3245453

[LynnTheDem]

38. A HAT-TRICK already this week for "NO SHIT, SHERLOCK" articles!

Saddam capture fiction; my hubby was THERE(4th ID). His entire UNIT was there. Which means a whole lot of people knew about the fiction from the start. But hey, 1 year later bothering to report on it ain't bad. For the USSA media.

Now give the rightwing another year to yell and screech and demonize everyone, and the fact of the fiction may just sink in.

And what does it say about a country that has to LIE about being HEROS, LIE by boosting the heroism of actual heros, and LIE by demonizing the enemy?

[LeahD]

45. Any possibility that those in the 4th ID will speak out?

[LynnTheDem]

63. Sooner or later, I'm sure.

4th ID aren't all a bunch of happy campers. Dunno about the 4thID in Carson but the mental health dept today was PACKED. As in SRO.

We have drug abuse off the charts. Stabbings, shootings, rapes.

We got us a HUGE pile of hurt.

[LeahD]

74. For those on the ground, the cost of war lasts a life time.

There isn't a magic pill to "make it all go away" after they return home. My dad was a paratrooper in WW II, and although he rarely talked about it, the few incidents he brought up taught me that war truly is Hell.

[LynnTheDem]

78. Yep it does.

And too often that life is very short once they're out of the warzone.

[Ms. Clio]

49. Wow, Lynn

What did your husband think of the "military production?"

[LynnTheDem]

58. from an anon source;

"It was all bullshit."

Me: What do you mean? What was "bullshit"?

"He was drugged, sedatives."

"The guy that supposedly tripped? Tripped over a plant pot and found the hole...stuck his head in and acted surprised. He wasn't part of our unit. He was civil affairs."

Me: Had he been on any other patrols with you guys?

"No, never saw him before that"

Me: Did he go with you guys on any (patrols) after that?

"No. Well not me. I never saw him again. Somebody else might have"

"There was no need for civil affairs to be there...this wasn't a snatch & grab, it was a search...a search & destroy."

"It was a monkey run. Informants and civil affairs leading us by the hand to places. Civil affairs never did that before."

Me: What about the guy, we saw on TV here, the soldier, he said "Prez bush sends his regards" or summat like that."

"Three guys were in the hole..."

Me: With Sadda...

"Civil affairs and 2 soldiers had to go in and get him out. The civil affairs guy said he was atrophied and cramped from being in the hole. The civil affairs guy went in first alone. It took him awhile to wake him up."

[Ms. Clio]

59. Holy frijoles

I don't doubt your anon source for one single second.

Thanks for the post.

[LynnTheDem]

62. That's what I said, lol!

I don't doubt the source either, and sooner or later stuff will start leaking out. Troops are getting upset with all the BS.

[Ms. Clio]

65. Man, it has just got to suck in the worst possible way

To be a good, honest, ethical person stuck in the middle of this foul web of lies.

[oneold1-4u]

39. This one thing we know!

This administration (regime) does not hold any type of "truth" a virtue! They were not honest in 2000 and cannot start now! Building untruths will keep the future in their dirty hands! Look for many other stupid news collaborations while they create a draft, raise taxes, remove SS, drill holes in Alaska, cut what forest is left, spill WMDs in some areas to see how effective (accidents),pass new strains of STDs on gays, and a few I can't think of.
I'm not suffering paranoia because at my age death isn't fearsome!

[TNOE]

43. Here are links I found - but still can't find video

http://infowars.com/print/iraq/saddam_captured.htm

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=77&contentid=1023&page=1

But this was a picture from the video I recall seeing

[Spinoza]

52. HOW DO WE KNOW

the marine in question is telling the truth? After all, this report comes from a SAUDI newspaper. We KNOW that all Saudi media is owned or directly controlled by the Saudi government. It's not like there is any good REASON to believe something published in Saudi Arabia. Please note, I am not arguing against the Marine's story. I don't know. But, without some further verification I think we should at least be sceptical of anything coming out of Saudi Arabia.

[Karenina]

61. WE ALL (except you mushrooms stateside) KNOW

that reports from AMERICAN *Corporate-controlled Media are consistently BULLSHIT and that there's NO REASON, at this point, to believe ANYTHING coming outta there. PRAVDA has more credibility!

[Blue_Tires]

55. isn't this old news?

on this site, there was discussion about a story where some group claimed to have saddam for about 2 weeks before the 'capture'(i.e., handing him over to the U.S.), and they were kind of miffed that they were not getting any mention or credit....this story came out not long after the capture, and i remember well reading about it here

[LdyGuique]

70. Kurds captured Saddam

This is one of the articles that ran during December 2003 -- and it claimed that Kurds captured Saddam, who was betrayed as an act of revenge in Tribal politics.

Posted: 21 December 2003 1158 hrs
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/62977/1/.html
Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops

LONDON, : 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 newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.

The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time."

- AFP

United Press International (UPI) has backed off its story (UPI is owned by Unification Church and closely tied to Washington Times. The article claims that they picked it up from the Arabic daily El Medina without verifying it with the Pentagon. Pentagon officials dismissed as "ridiculous" and untrue a report that the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was staged.

Now, what makes that interesting is that news agencies have become very gunshy about publishing articles that are substantially different from official reports without doing a whole LOT of doublechecking after the CBS Dan Rather incident over the fake documents.

[Blue_Tires]

80. THANK YOU for digging that up!!!

good point...no matter what people on this board think of Rather, he didn't deserve what happened to him, imo

expect to see more mainstream press toeing the white house line in the future

[KoKo]

64. DU'ers were onto the "Fake Saddam Capture." Many of us were

"Googling" for Date Palm harvests because we thought the photo's were a hoax. That something leaks out about a "One Day" difference makes us Laugh Hysterically. Saddam was captured long before any of the "convenient" photo shoots by the Busholini! :puke:

One day it will all come out...fake photos us killing Saddam's Sons for crimes WE commmitted...but we will have to wait a long, long time.

[VOX]

66. Right on, KoKo01! Everything's been staged over there, and DUers...

have been on to the scam every damn time. The Thanksgiving "dinner," the British Airways flight (remember that one) and the Saddam "capture."

Every one of these photo-ops is as staged as the "Mission Accomplished" flight-suit dance by The Chimp on the carrier deck.

**Everything** BushCo does is phoney! :mad:

[southlandshari]

67. Using low ranking troops to spread propaganda...

On Edit - Sorry I posted before reading the article linked to the original post. I've amended my post below accordingly:

I have two cousins who have served in Iraq this time around. One just went back for his second tour of duty, but he's an active duty Army Ranger, so that isn't surprising. The other is a pretty low level Army grunt (a private? I don't know what rank he is).

Anyway, this guy sent his father an email around the time of Saddam's capture and said his unit had been involved in the operation. He said he hadn't known at the time who they were going after, only that it was a "high level target". His job was to help secure a perimeter around the town where the operation was taking place. I don't remember all the details (but I think I still have a copy of the email his dad forwarded around), but I believe he said he didn't know until a day or two later that it was Saddam they had been after. He didn't actually witness the capture or even hear any action.

To make a long story short, attached to the email were several photos of my cousin and another soldier from his unit outside and inside what was indeed a little underground apartment accessed by a hole in the ground. It is the same hole pictured in the article posted by the OP of this thread.

These are pictures and words from someone I have known all his life. I also know that this is guy who, like too many other soldiers, enlisted for lack of some other clearer path in life, and can't wait until his three years are up so he can get out (though sadly, there is probably no escape for newly enlisted like him). Anyway, he is not the kind of guy who would be part of a grand conspiracy. He is, however, the kind of guy who could be unknowingly used to forward this kind of lie.

There was a "spider hole". I've seen the photos and it is clear that my cousin believed that this is where Saddam was found. The military spin doctors are obviously using low level soldiers to help - unknowingly - spread their lies. They obviously took troops to the "scene" and gave them a chance to take photos, knowing they would be sent home and used as anecdotal evidence of the story they would like us all to believe.

Now that I've told that story, I don't know why I'm surprised. It just makes me sick at the lengths certain elements will go to to fool the American public, even if it means using and abusing those who sacrifice the most for what they believe are noble goals. Ugh.

[ultraist]

71. The existance of a spider hole is not really in question

It's the fact that they FOUND Sadaam in the hole. They probably dug the hole, drugged him, and stuck him in there. It was all staged and filmed professionally. I don't doubt they did pull him out of a hole, but likely AFTER they had stuck him in there.

Who knows how they really captured him. I highly doubt it was the way they portrayed though. Likely, some traitor sold him out for a bunch of cash and it wasn't the great work of our intelligence.

[southlandshari]

73. Yeah, I know, I was a little quick to post

tonight - I tried to edit my post to reflect that I understood it wasn't the existence of the hole itself in question. Sorry for jumping the gun!

[pen dragon]

68. Don't forget that this all happened in the same week

Bush flew to iraq just to serve fake turkey to the troops out of the goodness of his heart

[jokerman93]

69. Lest we forget the Rambo story

Lest we forget the Rambo rescue story of the cute little blonde private, the toppling of the Saddam statue and who knows what else? All probably with an eye toward the blockbuster movie that will eventually be made about our brilliant war presnit and his campaigns to to free the world for corporate exploitation...

</sickening>

[NYC]

79. What a horrible thought.

It had never occurred to me that someone might make a movie of a biography of Bush.

[seventythree]

84. absolutely, add Mission Accomplished on the Lincoln

[indepat]

72. O.K., who is lying?

[spanone]

77. ...and how do we know 8 million voted in Iraq? Cause we were told?

Don't buy any of their doo doo.

[indepat]

85. Unfortunately we are all having to step in it

[OrlandoGator]

81. How long before this Marine is "suicided" or deemed "insane"?

The safe money is betting on inside a week.

[reprehensor]

83. Shortly after he sees his 'counselor'. n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

87. Wag the dog. That is all we are fed. n/t