Officials lay out plan to question Saddam

This FOX News Channel video grab shows the farmhouse where former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was captured. According to officials, US forces captured Saddam Saturday capping a massive eight-month manhunt by seizing him as he huddled in a camouflaged farmyard hole near his hometown of Tikrit. PHOTO: AFP

Then ask where Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and other remaining senior regime officials and insurgent leaders are hiding. Get Saddam to paint a picture of the resistance if he knows much about it, which some US officials doubt.

Down the road, when his interrogators have perhaps established a rapport with him, or perhaps even broken his will to resist questions, try to answer the many unresolved questions about Iraq's efforts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and ties to terrorists.

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US intelligence and military officials laid out these priorities Sunday for their interrogation of the ousted Iraqi president, believed to be under way already.

During the arrest of Saddam, US troops discovered "descriptive written material of significant value," one US commander in Iraq told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He declined to say whether the material related to the anti-coalition resistance.

Although Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military commander in Iraq, described Saddam as talkative and cooperative, other officials shied away from suggesting that he has provided any useful intelligence in the hours since his capture.

"He has not been cooperative in terms of talking or anything like that," Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told CBS' "60 Minutes."

Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Saddam's demeanor as sullen, not overtly defiant but sarcastic.

The immediate hope of American officials is that Saddam will have a wealth of knowledge on the guerrilla war being waged against the US-led occupation force and their Iraqi allies, officials said.

It's a race against the clock since his information grows more outdated by the hour, and other regime leaders and cells change locations or take other security precautions to avoid capture.

It is unclear what evidence, if any, troops uncovered of Saddam's possible operational control over the resistance. Officials announced they found no communications equipment, maps or other evidence of a guerrilla command center at Saddam's hiding place.

"Given the location and circumstances of his capture, it makes it clear that Saddam was not managing the insurgency, and that he had very little control or influence," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "That is significant and disturbing because it means the insurgents are not fighting for Saddam, they're fighting against the United States."