December 29, 2005

TIMES HUMOR: BOROWITZ REPORT

Saddam calls his torturers ‘rank amateurs’

Fears for the future of torture in post-Saddam Iraq

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched into yet another outburst at his trial today, calling the beatings and torture he had suffered at the hands of his American captors “the work of rank amateurs.”

“For days on end, they attempted to torture, torment, and otherwise abuse me,” an indignant Saddam told the court. “And I was like, dude, is that all you got?”

Having witnessed what he called “the Americans’ half-baked, slipshod attempts at torture,” the deposed Iraqi president said he feared for the future of torture in post-Saddam Iraq.

“Toppling my government, that was the easy part,” Saddam told the court. “But as for maintaining the high standards of torture that the Iraqi people grew accustomed to under my regime? Clearly, there was no plan or strategy for doing that.”

Saddam predicted that as soon as the Iraqi people learned how inept and ill-prepared the Americans were at torture, they would “drive the infidels from our land.”

“Iraqis are a proud people,” he said. “They are used to having torture that is the envy of the Middle East.”

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was dismissive of the former dictator’s critique of the United States’ torture techniques, calling Saddam’s outburst “a cheap shot.”

“We don’t do torture,” Secretary Rumsfeld said. “Having said that, when we do torture, we do it in a way that is second to none.”

Elsewhere, in a sign that he plans to continue his policy of domestic eavesdropping, President Bush said today that he had ordered the CIA to start aggressively recruiting mothers-in-law.

For more from Andy Borowitz go to www.borowitzreport.com. Andy Borowitz is a nationally syndicated humor columnist whose work can be found in Newsweek and other publications.