Saddam Feared Iran, Would Have Asked Bush for Help

Also said he never met 'zealot' bin Laden
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 24, 2009 7:01 PM CDT
Saddam Feared Iran, Would Have Asked Bush for Help
Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein reacts in court in this 2006 file photo in Baghdad.   (AP Photo / Nikola Solic, pool, FILE)

Saddam Hussein feared Iran more than the US and once considered cutting a deal with George W. Bush, the Daily News reports. In newly declassified interrogations from 2004, Saddam said that if Iran threatened to attack, he "would have sought a security agreement with the US," says the FBI report. He also adamantly denied working with al-Qaeda and said he never even saw the "zealot" Osama bin Laden.

If Iraq needed help in a fight against Iran, and the US refused to help, he most likely would have turned to North Korea, says the report. The US, he said at another point, "used the 9/11 attack as a justification to attack Iraq" and "lost sight of the cause of 9/11." As for WMDs, he said the nation did indeed destroy any they had but still enjoyed fooling the world about fake stockpiles. "By God, if I had such weapons, I would have used them in the fight against the US." (More Saddam Hussein stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X