Saddam's "fake" capture and the Moon connection

Most of you have probably already read the news: Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, formerly a Marine of Lebanese descent, has claimed that the December 13, 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein was phony. According to this account, the actual capture took place during a shoot-out at a house a day earlier.

"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.

Although the story was soon picked up by a Saudi paper, the first appearance of this tale came to us via UPI. You will recall that the good Reverend Sun Myung Moon owns this news service.

Keep the Moon connection in mind when you mull over the arguments that the Abou Rabeh tale appears to be itself rather questionable. The Pentagon has denied the report. As James Taranto points out, Abou Rabeh's account holds that a "Marine of Sudanese origin" was killed on December 12, even though official records do not list such a death. Taranto points out that "Saddam was captured by the Fourth Infantry Division, and it's not clear why Marines would be along on an Army operation."

I suppose that these two objections can be met. The Sudanese Marine may have been severely injured, not killed. Conceivably, Marines might have been seconded to an Army operation to aid in translation.

However, this site offers even more persuasive arguments against the tale. Bottom line: The bulk of the evidence weighs heavily against the UPI report.

So why did Moon's news organization cobble together this yarn?

It's worth noting that, shortly after the event, quite a few people denounced the capture of Saddam Hussein as a fraud. See, for example, this site, which I fear is a classic bit of theoretical over-reach. (The author relies on allegedly disparate photographs as "proof" that the captured Saddam was a double; I remain unconvinced.)

More interesting is this story from the London Sunday-Express:

The betrayal of Saddam Hussein may have been prompted by a blood feud which erupted after a tribal chief's daughter was raped by the tyrant's psychopathic eldest son Uday.

The full story of the fallen dictator's capture last Saturday in a "spider hole" near his birthplace of Tikrit exposes the version peddled by Americans as incomplete.

Saddam had already been handed over to Kurdish forces, who then brokered a deal with US commanders.

He was drugged and abandoned, ready for the American troops to recover him.

More:

Saddam was betrayed to the Kurds by a member of the al-Jabour tribe whose daughter was "defiled" by Uday, said a senior British military intelligence officer.

More:

Immediately after the raid in which Saddam was captured jubilant Kurdish officials leaked the news to an Iranian news agency hours before the US had a chance to make an official announcement to the assembled media in Baghdad.

Reuters news agency, which communicated the news to President Bush on Saturday, quoted as its source patriotic front spokesman, Nazem Dabag. The Iranian news agency IRNA which first broke the story quoted Jalal Talabani.

British officials have also voiced doubts about the American version that Saddam emerged from the hole to announce in English: "I am Saddam Hussein. I am president of Iraq and I want to negotiate."

One said: "It has a touch of the Jessica Lynch about it."

The Iranian account is here.

How does this version of events relate to Abou Rabeh's apparent fabrication?

If I may be permitted a bit of speculation: It may be that someone is about to release information in support of the Sunday Express version of the capture. Having gotten wind of this upcoming revelation, Moon's organization planted a deliberate, water-muddying fake, designed to make all such tales appear dubious.

You know -- sort of like the Rather memos.

The reference to Jessica Lynch reminds us that this war's many deceptions have left all of us asking Pilate's question. This fascinating article from ABC presents evidence from a psychological study that the public tends to recall as true stories later proven to be false. Just as jurors instructed to disregard testimony may nevertheless keep it lodged in memory, citizens will recall fables -- such as the Jessica Lynch myth -- long after they have been exposed as such.