Saddam Was Model Prisoner, Says Nurse

Saddam Hussein was mostly an uncomplaining prisoner who saved crumbs to feed the birds, watered weeds in the jail compound and believed that cigars were good for his health, according to a military nurse who cared for him in US custody.

Master Sergeant Robert Ellis told an American newspaper he had checked Saddam's health twice a day, with orders to do whatever was needed to keep him alive. "That was my job: to keep him alive and healthy, so they could kill him at a later date," he said in an interview with the St Louis Post-Dispatch published on Sunday.

Saddam maintained that cigars and coffee kept his blood pressure down. The remedy seemed to work, Sgt Ellis said, and he insisted on the nurse smoking with him.

For security reasons, the ex-president was never referred to in jail by his real name, but his codename - "Victor".

He slept in a 1.8 metre by 2.4 metre (6ft by 8ft) cell with a small table, two plastic chairs, a prayer mat, two washbasins and some books, including the Qur'an.

In case his health took a sudden turn for the worse, an adjoining cell held basic medical supplies, a defibrillator, intravenous solutions and oxygen.

Sgt Ellis, who cared for the captured tyrant at Camp Cropper from January 2004 to August 2005, said Saddam never gave him trouble. "When he was with me, he was in a different environment. I posed no threat. In fact, I was there to help him, and he respected that."

He did not complain much, Mr Ellis said - "he had very good coping skills" - and if he did complain it was usually a reasonable grievance. At one point he went on hunger strike because the guards were sliding food to him though a slot in the door but he started eating again when they delivered it to him in person. "He refused to be fed like a lion," Sgt Ellis said.

When he was allowed short visits outdoors, Saddam would feed birds with bread saved from his meals and water a patch of weeds. "He said he was a farmer when he was young and he never forgot where he came from," Sgt Ellis said.

He also read poetry to the nurse and recalled telling bedtime stories to his children. He appeared to have no regrets about the way he had ruled Iraq. "He said everything he did was for Iraq. One day when I went to see him, he asked why we invaded. Well, he made gestures like shooting a machine gun and asked why soldiers came and shot up the place. He said the laws in Iraq were fair and the weapons inspectors didn't find anything.

"I said, 'That's politics. We soldiers don't get caught up in that sort of thing.'"

Protests over Saddam's hanging continued in parts of the Middle East yesterday, with his eldest daughter, Raghad, making a brief public appearance in the Jordanian capital, Amman, where hundreds of demonstrators had gathered.