Delta Force operator breaks silence after 20 years to reveal how Saddam Hussein was captured

A former member of the Army’s secretive Delta Force, which lured Saddam Hussein from his underground hideout in 2003, has finally provided a firsthand account of the dictator’s capture.

Appearing on a podcast last month, Army Sergeant Major Kevin Holland spoke about Hussein’s arrest on December 13, 2003, the first time an American has done so. in almost 20 years.

youThe only known soldier to have served on both the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 and the Army’s equivalent, Holland later offered previously unheard details to former Navy SEAL Jack Carr on his Danger Close show.

Speaking with surprising candor to his fellow serviceman when asked about the high-profile incident, Holland revealed how he and his comrades-in-arms came to find the eight-foot-deep hole, and how they found an emaciated Hussein armed. with a gun inside.

The accounts come nearly two decades after the most recent official statement about the dictator’s capture, before his eventual execution by hanging in 2006.

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Holland, seen on the far left in the December 2003 photo, revealed how he and his brother’s arms came to find the eight-foot-deep hole, and how they found an emaciated Hussein armed with a pistol in the hole. inside.

Appearing alongside his partner from North Carolina, Daniel Winkler, a knifemaker Holland is collaborating with on a new tactical blade, the soldier broke his silence on the arrest, which was called into question last year when an Iraqi interpreter who worked with the US military refuted claims that Hussein was in hiding at the time of his arrest.

The trio began their discussion by talking about Holland and Winkler’s origins and how they came to know each other, before talking about Holland’s 20-year military career.

Holland described how he came to join the SEALS after high school when he saw a Parade magazine showing the special operations force on an alleged mission.all covered in mud.

“I always grew up with John Wayne, and watching Green Berets, and all that, and I wanted to be a Green Beret, and read First Blood, of course,” Holland said, noting that the main character Rambo wore “a 30/30 [Winchester Rifle]’, the weapon he used to hunt as a teenager in the hills of North Carolina.

“That’s what I grew up with, so his background was a Green Beret, and that’s what he wanted to be.”

Eventually, after seeing how limited the requirements were to join other services like the Army, Holland said he decided to join the SEALS and eventually joined the hallowed Team 6.

Holland, the only known soldier to have served in both the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 and the Army’s equivalent Delta Force, described how the soldiers posed for pictures with the deposed dictator, who he said exuded an “evil presence.”

Soon the conversation turned to Hussein, with Carr broaching the subject somewhat carefully, apparently anticipating that Holland would not, and probably could not, elaborate further.

“I don’t know if we can talk about it or not, we’ll edit it out,” Carr said, before asking the military about the 2003 mission in the small farming town of Ad-Dawr, where Hussein hid.

Holland responded by describing in painstaking detail how they received “human intelligence” about the location of the ousted dictator, eventually finding an emaciated Hussein in a small hideout near a farm.

The farm was located in a deserted expanse bordered by a single road, Holland said, where Iraqis loyal to Hussein would post themselves to notify them of any approaching forces.

After being well received, Carr began the sensitive exchange by asking how Holland and his team came to spot the small hole, which was masked with brush and dirt and a large layer of Styrofoam underneath.

Holland described in painstaking detail how they received “human intelligence” on the location of the ousted dictator and found an emaciated Hussein in a small hideout near a farm.

‘Mhm. Oh yeah,” Holland said, as if he were recalling an old family memory.

“Yeah, well, we had some human intelligence that showed us exactly where it was,” Holland said.

When his team found the dark spot mentioned by the tipster, “we just cleaned it up,” Holland said.

‘They had a big Styrofoam plug, you know, that they’d put in there and then cover it with leaves and dirt, sand, and it had a pipe for the air; we had noticed it when we cleaned it. He just dug it up, ripped it off, and sand fell out.

“And a bomb goes in,” the soldier laughed, revealing how the soldiers first cleared the hole with a well-placed grenade.

Holland then revealed that once the dust cleared, his team came face to face with a brick-lined shaft, too dark to see inside with the naked eye, and finally Hussein.

Holland, pictured in 2003 with other Delta Force members in Iraq, revealed that Hussein was armed and that the weapon, a Glock-15, is now in the possession of former President George W. Bush.

“We had lights on our guns, when you looked in, you could tell, you could see bricks, you know, where they boarded it up,” Holland recalled.

We know it’s something. And the boys say it’s there.

The soldiers then tried to dig out the underground lair with a dog, but, according to Holland, the animal was too scared to go inside.

“Then finally, once he removes the dogs, we start to hear someone speak Arabic, and the interpreter starts to respond,” Holland continues.

‘And it’s like someone’s coming, the voice is getting closer, you can tell. The sound, it’s getting closer.

Then he detailed how, suddenly, “hands come out of the hole, and then a big bushy hair.”

Holland described joining the service after high school after seeing an ad in Parade magazine.

“We grabbed him and pulled him out, and he’s like, ‘It’s him,'” Holland told Carr and Winkler, who seemed stunned by the soldier’s off-the-cuff story.

Holland added how one of the larger soldiers helped him pull Hussein out of the eight-foot-deep hole.

The soldier described the amazement he felt when his fellow soldier helped him get Hussein out, commenting: “It was like, ‘My God, it’s him.'”

Holland went on to shed more light on the arrest, describing how Hussein, then 66, had been armed with a pistol, encouraging one of his fellow soldiers, “a big Texan,” to punch the Iraqi despot in the mouth.

So a big Texan sticks him in the mouth, knocks him down, because he’s got a gun, he’s armed. So we had to make sure he couldn’t get to that gun.

Holland said the weapon was a “fully automatic Glock-15” and is now in the possession of former US President George W. Bush.

“Bush has that now,” Holland said.