CIA Unit Considered Depicting Saddam as Gay

It was going to create a phony sex video
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 25, 2010 4:34 PM CDT
CIA Unit Considered Depicting Saddam as Gay
A 2003 file photo of Saddam Hussein.   (AP Photo/U.S. Army)

In the annals of CIA subterfuge, this is a weird one: A special ops unit pitched the idea of trying to discredit Saddam Hussein as a gay pedophile before the 2003 invasion, reports the Washington Post. The idea was to create a phony home video purporting to show Saddam having sex with a teenage boy. Superiors eventually shot it down, though the unit did make a fake video with an Osama bin Laden lookalike bragging about his conquests of young males.

One problem with the scheme: “Saddam playing with boys would have no resonance in the Middle East—nobody cares,” a former CIA official tells the Post. “Trying to mount such a campaign would show a total misunderstanding of the target. We always mistake our own taboos as universal when, in fact, they are just our taboos.” (More Saddam Hussein stories.)

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