Something tells me that someone here is not being forthright

From HBO's The Wire — er, I mean, the NY Times:

TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec. 19 — The most wanted man in Iraq last week — besides Saddam Hussein — was not on anyone's Top 55 or even Top 200 fugitive list.

He was a balding, paunchy middle-aged veteran of Mr. Hussein's once feared Special Security Organization, a notorious womanizer who was a member of one of the five close-knit families that supplied Mr. Hussein's most trusted lieutenants.

But most important to American forces, he probably knew Mr. Hussein's whereabouts at any given moment. And last Saturday night, after his capture in Baghdad and four hours of grueling interrogation, he led United States Special Operations Forces to Mr. Hussein's hole-in-the-ground hideaway just south of here.

Army officers said today that they had known for months that the informant was an important player in Mr. Hussein's Mafia-like organization. But it was only in the last several weeks that they came to realize just how crucial he really was to Mr. Hussein's survival.

[...]

Fourth Division commanders and intelligence officers refused to identify their star informant today, citing continuing operations. But interviews with several officers here over the past two days revealed new details about the informant and the detective work done by military intelligence analysts here to identify a complex web of relationships linked to Mr. Hussein.

[...]

The fruit of this analytical effort, first described Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, is a highly classified, color-coded chart that depicts Mr. Hussein's family and organizational tree. Centered in the chart in a yellow circle like a bull's-eye is Mr. Hussein. Links to other people radiate out, based on familial and functional ties. The names of those killed or captured are written in red.

The chart was started in late June with four names. Today, intelligence analysts are tracking more than 9,000 people, Major Murphy said. About 250 are important enough to earn a place on the chart's wiring diagram that is so mind-numbingly intricate that officers here simply call it the "Mongo Link."

It is the product of a 16-member intelligence team managed by Major Murphy. Analysts working at computer terminals in 12-hour shifts, round-the-clock, seven days a week, update computer databases with the latest information from Iraqi informants, Army patrols, electronic intercepts and other sources.

But then there's this, from Yahoo News:

LONDON, (AFP) - Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him, a British Sunday newspaper said.

Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq (news - web sites), "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until he negotiated a deal.

The deal apparently involved the group gaining political advantage in the region.

I guess my inclination is to think it's cute how the Brits love their tabloids.