From: "Rich Gauszka" 


"Geo."  wrote in message news:459999eb{at}w3.nls.net...
> I'm kind of disappointed he had no final statements of stuff that went on
> behind the scenes over the years.
>
> Geo.
>
> "Phil Payne" 
wrote in message
> news:4599785c{at}w3.nls.net...
>> "Geo."  wrote in message
news:459838b3{at}w3.nls.net...
>>> There was a link on drudge that took me to the phone cam version which
>>> had
>>> sound and was pretty complete but I don't understand the language.
>>
>> http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=dead-and-buried%2D-the-end-of-sadda
m%26method=full%26objectid=18360653%26siteid=94762-name_page.html
>>
>>


The Saddam nurse interview was interesting

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/1EA24
471C8BC29EE86257255000CA548?OpenDocument

From the comfort of his family room in Normandy, Robert Ellis watched as
the man he had been charged with keeping alive, the same man he risked his
own life to protect, refused a hood before he was executed Friday night.

It was typical Saddam Hussein, Ellis said.

"Saddam was gangsta'," he said, brutal and tough. But Ellis had
seen another side of the former dictator and knew him in a way few others
could.

Ellis had been called up in late 2003 from the Army Reserve and had no idea
what his mission would be. From January 2004 until August 2005, Master Sgt.
Ellis was the senior medical adviser at the compound near Baghdad where
Saddam and other "high value detainees" were jailed.

colonel told him directly: "Saddam Hussein cannot die in U.S. custody.
You do whatever you have to do to keep him alive."

Ellis, 56, an operating room nurse at St. Joseph Health Center in St.
Charles, understood the orders.

"That was my job: to keep him alive and healthy, so they could kill
him at a later date."

Ellis cleared his mind of the atrocities linked to Saddam. He set aside
judgment; others would judge.

Ellis took care of a tyrant. In doing so, he heard Saddam read his poetry,
talk about his children and wonder about the fate of his country.

At Camp Cropper, where Saddam was initially held in solitary confinement,
the dictator was confined to a 6-by-8-foot cell. He had a cot and a small
table where he kept some books and a Quran, two plastic chairs, a prayer
rug and two wash basins. An adjoining cell kept basic medical supplies, a
defibrillator, intravenous solutions and oxygen.

Ellis checked on Saddam twice a day. He wrote a thorough
"situation" report daily about the dictator's physical and
emotional status. None of the military personnel there ever talked about
Saddam by his name. They called him "Victor," a code name in case
any agency or groups came looking for him.

Saddam told Ellis that smoking cigars and coffee kept his blood pressure
down, and it seemed to work. Saddam would insist that Ellis smoke with him.

At one point, Saddam went on a hunger strike, refusing to eat when the
guards would slide food through the slot on the bottom of his door. But
when they changed tactics and opened the door, he started eating again.

"He refused to be fed like a lion," Ellis said.

For a while, when he was allowed short visits outside, Saddam would feed
the birds bread saved from his meals. He also watered a dusty plot of
weeds.

"He said he was a farmer when he was young and he never forgot where
he came from," Ellis said.

Ellis had to produce a temporary clinic for all the inmates out of a room
with a scale and a bunch of pills. Whenever someone got seriously ill, he
had to transport them to a military hospital.

"Once you were on the road, you were fair game," Ellis said. He
was shot at a few times and escaped safely from a roadside bomb explosion
once. He was on the road at least two or three times a week, and every time
he got in a vehicle, he knew he could have died.

His patients also included Ali al-Majid, Saddam's cousin who has been
nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for allegedly gassing Kurds.

Saddam never gave Ellis trouble. He didn't complain much, and if he did it
was usually legitimate.

"He had very good coping skills," Ellis added.

Saddam also talked to him about happier times when his children were young:
how he told them bedtime stories and how he would give his daughter half a
Tums when she complained of a tummy ache.

After Ellis got an emergency call from America that his brother was dying,
he told Saddam he was leaving immediately. Before he left, Saddam hugged
him and said he would be his brother.

Ellis has no problem reconciling the Saddam he knew with the Saddam
convicted for unimaginable atrocities or the recalcitrant Saddam the public
saw turning his trials into spectacles.

"When he was with me, he was in a different environment," he
said. "I posed no threat. In fact, I was there to help him, and he
respected that."

Saddam never discussed dying and expressed no regrets about his rule.

"He said everything he did was for Iraq," Ellis said. "One
day when I went to see him, he asked why we invaded. Well, he made gestures
like shooting a machine gun and asked why soldiers came and shot up the
place. He said the laws in Iraq were fair and the weapons inspectors didn't
find anything.

"I said, 'That's politics. We soldiers don't get caught up in that
sort of thing.'"

Ellis says he knows the dictator got what he deserved, but he worries that
the execution may make him a martyr in the eyes of his supporters.

"This could mean that the violence there will continue," he said.

But beyond that, Ellis dislikes having been part of keeping Saddam healthy
in the short term.

"I knew all along what they were going to do. This went against my
grain as a nurse, but as a soldier — well, that was my job."

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5