#SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURE PHOTOS SERIES#

''But Saddam helped it immeasurably in the long run. ''The image of him undergoing a physical examination for lice in the hair and having his tongue pushed down with a tongue-depresser is about as routine as it gets, which showed basically that he was an ordinary mortal, was not superhuman, that he was no longer a threat,'' he said. Hussein being examined by coalition medical personnel, was better than any officials had hoped for, he said. ''You don't want an image that in any way allows him to be built up as a martyr or allows him to appear heroic.'' ''Obviously, you have to choose carefully,'' Mr. Bremer's announcement that ''We got him'' also put an Iraqi stamp on that event, where the first military pictures and video of Mr. The shared podium and the pictures of Iraqi journalists among those cheering Mr. Bremer and officials of the Iraqi Governing Council. Hussein's capture was provided at a news briefing held in Iraq just after 7 a.m. He did not share many details.Ī more detailed account of Mr. It was obviously going to mean a great deal to the Iraqis.''Īccording to the plan that Iraqis be part of the news break, Jalal Talabani, a former president of the Iraqi Governing Council and a leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, first began to tell reporters in Iraq and Iran after 4 a.m. ''Iraqis were going to be making the announcement no matter what,'' Mr. Bush felt strongly about, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Sunday at a briefing. Hussein would need an Iraqi face, he said, a stipulation that Mr.

''Our goal was to quickly affirm the truth of the situation, and that meant being able to quickly prove it.''Ī decision was made early on that the capture of Mr. ''Baghdad is a place that feeds on rumors,'' he said. Thatcher said, officials had developed a faster identification system that eliminated the need for DNA samples to be sent away for confirmation. A process was devised so top military commanders in Iraq and the United States could receive and clear the imagery as quickly as possible. Hussein, dead or alive, could be made public. Thatcher said, was to speed the process by which imagery of Mr. Hussein was captured alive another was to be used if he was found dead. Thatcher, a former journalist, said he and other planners - who included Charles Heatley, a British Provisional Authority spokesman, and officers with Special Forces and intelligence backgrounds - set about drafting two plans to proclaim perhaps the most important news since the war in Iraq began. Paul Bremer III.Īppointed to his position in August, Mr. ''I think it's fair to say that we didn't expect the degree of skepticism that we found after Uday and Qusay were killed,'' said Gary Thatcher, an author of the media strategy and the director of strategic communications for the Coalition Provision Authority, which is led by L. Just as important, the officials say, the events taught the Americans that Arab audiences considered video to be the most credible form of news reportage, particularly since the arrival of the 24-hour Arab news networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Iraqis and indeed most Arabs have gotten their news for decades from less-than-candid government-controlled news outlets, and are deeply skeptical of all official claims, with or without confirmation from independent outlets.

#SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURE PHOTOS SERIES#

That series of events, American officials say, taught American communications strategists some hard lessons about the Arab and Iraqi media. Military planners had to go so far so as to put their bodies on display for journalists to see for themselves and release morbid videos of their reconstructed bodies for use on television. When photographs were released later, many Iraqis said they were not convinced that the bodies were those of Mr. As with Uday and Qusay Hussein, news that the two men might have been killed seeped out before their identities could be confirmed.

Saddam hussein capture photos