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Exclusive: Saddam Interpreter Speaks
Thursday, November 13, 2003
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Saddam Hussein (search) moved around incessantly, even before the U.S. toppled him from power, his personal translator told Fox News.
In his first interview with an American television network, Saddam's translator Saman Abdul Majid (search) told Fox that before the war, no one knew where the Iraqi dictator was sleeping on any given night.
"Now, I would say he is not staying in any one place for more than two or three nights," Majid, 57, told Fox. "I would say you would find him where you would not expect to, so I do not believe he is in Tikrit."
Majid, a Kurd who spent 15 years as Saddam's French and English interpreter, just published his memoirs in French, titled "Saddam Years." He currently lives in Qatar.
In the days leading up to the U.S.-led war, according to Majid, Saddam was resigned to accepting whatever happened, saying if war began it would be the will of God.
The former Iraqi president also believed the American effort to oust him would fail because of internal resistance, according to Majid. The translator said Saddam expected there to be so many bodies that the U.S. would be forced to ask for a cease-fire or negotiate an end to the fighting.
In his book, Majid writes that early in his first term, former President Clinton sent a clergyman to Iraq who said the U.S. was "ready to open a new chapter" in American-Iraqi relations and "wanted to start friendship on a new basis," but there were no concrete offers on the table. Saddam rejected the gesture.
Majid writes that Saddam was a tyrant who instilled a climate of fear during his rule, but he was a complex man who also could be generous, according to Times of London.
The interpreter also says in his book that Saddam cooked up elaborate schemes to keep foreign dignitaries in the dark about where they were meeting with him, but contrary to popular belief, the dictator didn't use body doubles, the Times reported. It was Saddam himself who appeared in the streets of Baghdad early in the war, according to Majid's memoirs.
Majid told Fox that he considered French President Jacques Chirac (search) a personal friend, saying he believes he and Chirac understand each other. He said Saddam was disappointed that Chirac didn't defend him to a greater extent in the days before the war and the Iraqi dictator felt caught in the middle of a conflict between two superpowers.
"Saddam Years" is the first book to be published by an insider of the dictator's regime.
Click here to see Fox News Channel's full fair and balanced report.
Fox News' Greg Palkot and Catherine Donaldson-Evans contributed to this report.
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