Saddam Fan of Reagan, Doritos

GQ's July issue has a treat: an interview with several of Saddam's American guards. GQ has a brief excerpt on their site. The Associated Press has an overview of what GQ found out. Highlights from the stingy GQ excerpt:

"He talked about how Reagan sold him planes and helicopters and stuff," says Jesse. "And basically funded his war against Iran," says Sean. "He said, 'I wish things were like when Ronald Reagan was still president, and I said, 'Yeah, I wish they were, too, because then I wouldn't be here.'"

When Sean told him that Reagan had recently died of Alzheimer's, Saddam got quiet for a minute, then said, "Yes. This happens."

From the AP story full of nuggetty Saddam goodness:

NEW YORK - Thrust unexpectedly into the role of prison guards for Saddam Hussein, a group of young American soldiers found the deposed Iraqi leader to be a friendly, talkative "clean freak" who loved Raisin Bran for breakfast, did his own laundry and insisted he was still president of Iraq, says a report published on Monday.

...[Saddam] had harsh words for both President Bushes, each of whom went to war against him.

"The Bush father, son, no good," one of the soldiers, Cpl. Jonathan "Paco" Reese, 22, of Millville, Pa., quotes Saddam as saying. But his fellow GI, Specialist Sean O'Shea, then 19, says Saddam later softened that view.

"Towards the end he was saying that he doesn't hold any hard feelings and he just wanted to talk to Bush, to make friends with him," O'Shea, of Minooka, Pa., told the magazine.

A third soldier, Spc. Jesse Dawson, quoted Saddam as saying of Bush, "`He knows I have nothing, no mass weapons. He knows he'll never find them.'"
...
The soldiers say Saddam was preoccupied with cleanliness, washing up after shaking hands and using diaper wipes to clean his meal trays, his utensils and the table before eating. "He had germophobia or whatever you call it" said Dawson, 25, of Berwick, Pa.

The article quotes the GIs on Saddam's eating preferences — Raisin Bran Crunch was his breakfast favorite. "No Froot Loops," he told O'Shea. He ate fish and chicken but refused beef at dinner.

For a time his favorite food was Cheetos, and when those ran out, Saddam would "get grumpy," the story says. One day the guards substituted Doritos corn chips, and Saddam forgot about Cheetos. "He'd eat a family size bag of Doritos in 10 minutes," Dawson says.

Saddam prayed five times a day in his cell and kept a Quran that he claimed to have found in some rubble near the underground hideout. "He proudly showed (it) to the boys because it was burned around the edges and had a bullet hole in it," the story says.
...
Saddam told the guards his capture in an underground hideout on Dec. 18, 2003, resulted from a betrayal by the only man who knew where he was, and had been paid to keep the secret. [This corroborates Debkafile's theory about why he was so docile and scruffy when captured: the spider hole had been his prison. -Rob]

"He was really mad about that," says Dawson. "He compared himself to Jesus, how Judas told on Jesus. He was like, `that's how it was for me." If his Judas never said anything, nobody ever would have found him, he said."