SCRIPT: Saddam's Secret Tapes 2/15/06
Feb. 15, 2006 — -- In Iraq, tonight, Saddam Hussein is alone, locked up, claiming he's on a hunger strike and in fact, on trial for his life. But ABC News has obtained secret audiotapes of Saddam while he was in power, as Iraq's ruthless dictator, talking freely with his closest aids. And he's talking, among other things, about terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Without question these tapes will shed new light on the debate over the war and on Saddam's future. ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross is here with this exclusive report.
BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS
Officials tell us these tapes were recovered by the CIA in Baghdad and turned over to the FBI for translation. The freelance translator hired for the job happened to be a former member of a UN weapons inspection team in Iraq and says when he realized what was on the tape, he decided they were too important to keep secret. That's how we got them. And here they are, with English translation added.
BRIAN ROSS
The most dramatic moment on the 12 hours of tapes comes when Saddam, meeting in his palace with close aides in the mid-1990s, predicts a terrorist attack on the United States.
SADDAM HUSSEIN, FORMER IRAQI LEADER
Terrorism is coming.
BRIAN ROSS
He says he warned the Americans and the British.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
That in the future, there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. I told them, in the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ one or a chemical one?
BRIAN ROSS
But then, he says, Iraq would never do such a thing.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
This is coming. This story is coming. But not from Iraq.
BRIAN ROSS
Also at the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, who says Iraq was being wrongly accused of terrorism.
TARIQ AZIZ, FORMER DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF IRAQ
It's so simple that any biologists can make a bottle of germs and drop it into a water tower and kill 100,000. This is not done by a state. No need to accuse a state. An individual can do it. Even an American in a house close to the White House.
