Saddam Hussein said ‘you can’t trust anyone with a beard like that’ when asked about Osama bin Laden

Saddam Hussein said ‘you can’t trust anybody with a beard like that’ when asked about Osama bin Laden and admitted he FAILED about having weapons of mass destruction to deter Iran from invading Iraq, an FBI interrogator reveals.

  • ‘Saddam told me he didn’t like Osama bin Laden,’ former FBI agent said
  • George Piro said Saddam lied about weapons of mass destruction to make his neighbor to the east, Iran, nervous

Saddam Hussein said ‘you can’t trust anybody with a beard like that’ when asked about al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the FBI interrogator of the ousted Iraqi dictator has revealed.

George Piro, a Lebanese-American special agent who spent several hours a day interrogating the Iraqi tyrant, said Saddam joked with him as he tried to establish the dictator’s links to the terror network.

But while trying to find out if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, Piro said he found he had nothing but contempt for the terror group.

Piro was the lead interrogator for Saddam Hussein’s interrogation team after the leader’s capture by US soldiers in Iraq in 2004.

The now-retired FBI agent also said Saddam lied about having weapons of mass destruction because he wanted to scare Iraq’s neighbor and enemy Iran.

George Piro said Saddam Hussein (pictured) joked with him when he tried to establish the dictator’s links to the terror network.

Saddam Hussein reportedly said 'you can't trust anybody with a beard like that' when asked about al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (pictured)

Saddam Hussein reportedly said ‘you can’t trust anybody with a beard like that’ when asked about al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (pictured)

For months, Piro would spend several hours a day with the Iraqi dictator questioning and interrogating him.

“Saddam told me that he did not like Osama bin Laden and that he did not believe in al Qaeda’s ideology because his goal was to create an Islamic state in the entire Arab world,” Piro told CNN, now 20 years after the invasion. from Iraq

He said Saddam held this view because he had “no desire to hand over power or cede anything to someone else.”

During lengthy interrogation sessions, Piro said he realized Saddam’s claim to possess weapons of mass destruction was a hoax. He suggested that he had lied to make the neighbor to the east, Iran, nervous.

‘Their biggest enemy was not the United States or Israel. His biggest enemy was Iran, and he told me that he was constantly trying to balance or compete with Iran,” Piro said.

‘Saddam’s biggest fear was that if Iran found out how weak and vulnerable Iraq had become, nothing would stop them from invading and taking over southern Iraq. So his goal was to keep Iran at bay.

Piro said he was able to use the hours-long interrogation sessions to get Saddam to admit that he would have rebuilt a weapons of mass destruction program if the United States lifted sanctions against the country.

Former FBI interrogator George Piro (pictured) said Saddam Hussein lied about weapons of mass destruction to unnerve Iraq's eastern neighbor Iran.

Former FBI interrogator George Piro (pictured) said Saddam Hussein lied about weapons of mass destruction to unnerve Iraq’s eastern neighbor Iran.

He told CNN: “I asked Saddam, ‘When the sanctions were lifted, what were you going to do?'”

“He said, ‘We were going to do what we had to do, or what we would have to do to protect ourselves,’ which was his way of saying that he would have reconstituted his entire WMD program.”

After hours spent with Saddam, Piro said the Iraqi predicted that the events following his removal from power would be protracted and brutal, and that restoring government to the country would be more complicated than the West had assumed.

‘Saddam is one of the most brutal dictators of our time and was responsible for some of the most horrific atrocities in history, but on the other hand, he told me that we had no idea how difficult it was to run Iraq, but we would find out. that deleting it.

Piro is now writing a book about his sessions with the Iraqi leader after retiring from the FBI last year.