Saddam 'not co-operating'

2003-12-15 07:19

Washington - US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said late on Sunday that captured former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has so far refused to give the US military any intelligence information.

"He has not been co-operative in terms of talking or anything like that," Rumsfeld told CBS.

But the defence secretary said the former Iraqi leader "clearly was compliant or resigned" when US troop took him into custody and moved him to a secure location.

Six hundred US soldiers nabbed the elusive Iraqi leader late on Saturday, after finding him hiding in a tiny hole dug under a small hut, just 15 kilometres southeast of his native town of Tikrit.

Rumsfeld made clear he could not rule out that Saddam might decide to co-operate with US military authorities in the future.

"I think it's a bit early to try to characterise his demeanour," he said.

Time magazine reported earlier that during his first interrogation, Saddam Hussein denied his regime had any weapons of mass destruction.

"No, of course not," the weekly quoted him as saying about Iraq's alleged weapons programs, "the US dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us."

- AFP