George Piro

I saw this interview on 60 minutes last night, an interview with the FBI agent who interviewed Saddam Hussein after he was captured - for 7 months!

For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking. But you are going to hear more than has ever been revealed before.

After his capture, Saddam met every day with one man, an American he knew as "Mr. George." George is FBI agent George Piro, who was the front man for a team of FBI and CIA analysts who were trying to answer some of the great mysteries of recent history. What happened to the weapons of mass destruction? Was Saddam in league with al Qaeda? Why did he choose war with the United States?

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but gee I really wish we knew more of what Saddam was thinking and doing before we invaded.

Watch it!

This part is so striking:

He told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the '90s. And those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq," Piro says.

"So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?" Pelley asks.

"It was very important for him to project that because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq," Piro says.

So it boils down to who Saddam was most afraid of, Iran or the US. Apparently Iran. Go figure. Also... the video says that Saddam's own reason to invade Kuwait was because of an insult the Emir of Kuwait (al- sabah?) made to the Iraqi Prime Minister that he wouldn't stop taking their disputed oil "until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute" (!!) Way to go guys! Must respond to stupid provocations by starting a war whereby hundreds of 1000's of those women will eventually die. Ugh. Machismo did not die with Saddam unfortunately. (sound familiar Mr. Bush?)

I have my own personal theories about how this relates to middle-eastern men in particular having a genetic defect/inability to "lose face" -even if it means the loss of the lives of their countrymen ( or in my Tunisian ex-husband's case - -losing his family by divorce). Grand over-generalization I know, every culture has this to some degree, but since its my blog and no one reads it anyway, there you go!

That said, since my weakness was revealed two sentences ago for the exotic mediterranean type, boy was I glad to see Arab-Americans in a positive light in such a high profile role. And yes indeed I found Mr. Piro to be one very handsome G-Man. Hubada Hubada ;~) Yum....with a great smile. If I could, I would invite him over to say "thank you" with some baklava and mint tea with pine nuts ;~)