FBI releases transcripts of Saddam talks

WASHINGTON, July 2 (UPI) -- Iraq had no ties to Osama bin Laden and shared a common enemy in the clerical regime in Iran, Saddam Hussein told FBI interrogators in newly released archives.

The FBI released transcripts of interrogations and casual conversations with the Iraqi dictator following a Freedom of Information Act request by the U.S. National Security Archive.

In the meetings, Saddam said there were no ties between his government and the "zealot" bin Laden. He goes on to state that he shared Washington's perception that Iran was run by a group of "fanatic" mullahs.

He acknowledges certain mistakes during his tenure, including the autonomous destruction of remnants of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program without the supervision or verification from U.N. inspections teams.

Saddam took pride, however, in the decision to launch Scud missiles on Israel during the first Gulf War but denied the attack was meant to draw the region into broader conflict.

He makes no mention of chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish civilians and guerrillas in the late 1980s, though claims as one of his accomplishments a brief truce with the Kurds reached in the early 1970s.

Despite repeated questioning by his FBI interrogator, Saddam denies any links to al-Qaida and insists his country did not have an active weapons program at the time of his capture in 2004.

CIA officers did not uncover a weapons program in Iraq during their independent inspections, and U.S. President Bush, who justified the invasion in part on such claims, admitted later that most of the intelligence on the weapons program in Iraq turned out to be inaccurate.