Saddam's Capture

December 13, 2003. I went to breakfast at the Al-Rasheed that day. By coincidence, I sat across the table from Dave Pierce. Dave was in our IAC crew but lived at the special forces safe house, because he had a lot of friends there and traveled in those circles. This was good for us because they had the best parties in the Green Zone. They had two chest coolers always fully stocked with beer, flat screen TV’s, and a veritable museum of Iraqi weaponry. They also had a stable of cars and vans for our driving pleasure. The down side was that their east compound wall was riverfront. So they got shot at a lot more than we did. In fact, they had constructed parapets so that could shoot over the wall to return fire. Anyway, Dave had this Cheshire cat grin on his face like he couldn’t wait to tell a secret. OK, Dave, out with it! He said, “Don’t tell anyone, but I just can’t hold it any longer. I got word this morning from my SF buddies that we got Saddam!” COOL.

So I spent the rest of the day with the same stupid grin on MY face, but I didn’t tell anyone until just before the press conference. Me, Sally, Keith, and a few of our interpreters got to go into the press briefing room for the briefing. They held it at the Convention Center. So there we were, three rows back, watching live what the rest of the world saw on TV – Amb. Bremer announcing, “We got him!” Then they showed the video of a very hairy, bearded Saddam receiving a dental inspection. The place went wild!! Two Iraqi journalists stood on the table and started chanting “Death to Saddam!” in Arabic, in unison, like they do. They were crying with joy and revenge. This lasted for about five minutes. Bet you didn’t see that at home, did you? There was joy everywhere. We took lots of pictures of each other in the press room. The privileged few. Afterwards, we went back to our offices. We were met by what could only be described as a delegation of our interpreters. They thanked us profusely and asked us to thank all you folks back home and President Bush. It was a great day to be an American. And an Iraqi.