Click to play videoNew Delhi: Saddam Hussein's threats of raining down weapons of mass destruction on his enemies was an elaborate smokescreen, claims a former FBI special agent.
Former FBI agent George Piro — who interrogated the late Iraqi leader — said the smokescreen was basically to deter an Iranian attack.
Prio said Saddam never thought the US would invade Iraq and overthrow him. Once it was clear that an invasion was on, Saddam's instructions to his commanders was to hold their advance for two weeks.
"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that (faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from re-invading Iraq," PTI quoted Piro as saying in a television interview.
However, the FBI special agent claimed that Saddam was keen to start the production of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"Saddam still had the engineers. The folks he needed to reconstitute his programme are still there. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD to reconstitute his entire WMD programme. This included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons," PTI further quoted Piro as saying.
Claiming the deposed dictator told him that he did not expect the United States to invade Iraq, Piro was quoted as saying, "He told me he initially miscalculated President Bush's intentions. He thought the US would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998, a four-day aerial attack. He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack."
Saddam Hussein was hanged in 2006 after a long trial.
(With inputs from PTI)
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