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Saddam Hussein played up his mythical WMD stockpile in the belief that the U.S. would not invade, according to George Piro, an FBI agent who interrogated him after his December 2003 capture. Apparently, he was convinced that the U.S. would only drop a few bombs, not send in ground troops. He’d survived a similar air attack in 1998, he told Piro, and thought he could do it again. But why, you ask? He wanted to keep up his tough-guy image. “For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam,” Piro says. “He thought that would prevent the Iranians from re-invading Iraq.” Piro will appear on 60 Minutes this Sunday.
