An Iraqi General Gives Up but Not In

With dark circles under his eyes and a cigarette constantly in his hand, the man who was No. 21 on the United States’ list of most-wanted Iraqis acknowledged during his last few hours of freedom Wednesday that he didn’t always agree with Saddam Hussein, but would make no apologies for his involvement in the dictator’s regime.

After a wide-ranging interview with The Times in which he sharply denied that he had done anything in his career that could be counted as a crime against humanity, Gen. Zuhayr Naqib, the director of military intelligence under Hussein, surrendered to U.S. forces here.

Carrying red worry beads and an attache case with his personal belongings, he walked from his car into one of Hussein’s former palaces, now being used by the Americans, next door to his old place of work.

During nearly two hours before his surrender, the 56-year-old Naqib, a man of few words who appeared exhausted by recent events but resolute in his decision to give himself up, depicted himself as a purely military man who did his job.

“This was the military -- you move up from position to position. I was just following orders,” he said. “But I will not answer whether I believed in the regime.”

But he said he shared Hussein’s Pan-Arab ideas and his hope that Iraq and its military could be the force for creating a larger Arab nation.

Naqib refused to give any details of his 35-year-long army career, which spanned a period that included atrocities and invasions of neighboring countries. He defended his role under the regime, saying he couldn’t have left his military post even if he had wanted to because of Hussein’s power to hurt not just him but his family.

Although he spoke haltingly, he offered some insights into the fallen regime.

He confirmed other insiders’ accounts of Hussein’s propensity for making staffing decisions based on his fears of betrayal even when they undermined his military’s effectiveness. He described a military organization sapped of much of its strength after two previous wars followed by 12 years of sanctions. He said the United States’ heavy bombing of Baghdad had degraded Iraqi forces. And he dismissed the American and British allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. intelligence officials in Washington said they had little detail on Naqib’s activities under the regime, noting that he had been in the intelligence job only since June 2002. They said the United States placed Naqib on its most-wanted list because of his intelligence position but also because his brother is married to Hussein’s half-sister, Silham.

A Defense Department official said that before Naqib was named head of military intelligence, he was an officer in the regular Iraqi army’s 1st Corps, a military command based in the northern part of the country.

Asked whether Naqib could be a candidate for a war crimes trial, the Defense Department official said: “It depends what kind of stuff they find on him. He’s been loyal to the regime and been promoted through the command structure rapidly. It all depends on how he proved his commitment and loyalty to Saddam Hussein.”

Under Hussein, Iraq’s military intelligence apparatus was largely devoted to spying on the country’s own troops.

In the interview, Naqib denied doing anything morally wrong. “What is their proof that I am a war criminal?” he asked.

Naqib’s decision to give himself up was prompted at least in part by a relative, Namir Taha Kaissi, who told him that he could not spend the rest of his life on the run.

“I told him ‘You cannot live [in] hiding,’ ” said Kaissi, who made contact with the Americans and arranged the surrender.

But at first, Naqib, a man who, whatever he may have done as a member of Hussein’s government, appears to have a deep military sense of honor, was reluctant to publicly admit defeat.

Kaissi, whom Naqib had been staying with in recent days, recalled the general saying at first: “ ‘It is the right thing to do, but I don’t want to be [the] first.’

“So I told him seven guys surrendered, and then he said, ‘OK,’ ” said Kaissi, who arranged for him to be taken into U.S. custody at the Al Adimiya Palace, next to the military intelligence headquarters.

Even after making the decision, Naqib seemed eager to convince himself that it was neither a betrayal of his country nor his military duty.

“I’m sure I did my military duty,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with turning myself in to the United States.”

Naqib talked about his views in a well-furnished living room in the elite Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. Although he said he wished that he could lead an ordinary life in the future, he seemed to know that it was unlikely.

“I wish I could remain and live in this country as an ordinary Iraqi civilian,” he said.

Later he admitted that when he was appointed to his most recent position he felt he was on board “a sinking ship.”

Then why didn’t he leave? “I would be afraid about everything,” he said. “No Iraqi could have left the military unless the government wanted them to. It’s not a matter of a person’s wish. It’s not for a military person to choose.”

Naqib said little about his role as chief of military intelligence, other than suggesting that he had little impact in the job to which he was assigned just 10 months ago, when Hussein abruptly removed his predecessor.

He had met with Hussein only twice since he took the position, he said, the last time more than three months ago.

Asked if it made sense to remove the military intelligence chief as war loomed, Naqib shrugged and said only two words: “Saddam Hussein,” indicating that it was the former president’s decision.

Still, for much of his career, Naqib appears to have been deeply satisfied. “I liked to be a military man,” he said. “I loved the military life.”

Naqib was sharply dismissive of U.S. allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. When asked, he gestured that there was nothing to it. Why then didn’t the regime open the doors to U.N. weapons inspectors and give them all related documents immediately?

He sighed. “It was Saddam Hussein’s decision -- no one could have any effect on him,” he said.

As a military man -- he was in the regular Iraqi army’s tank division for many years -- he was matter-of-fact and even analytical about the Iraqi army’s defeat.

“It wasn’t my responsibility to make the plans to defend Baghdad. That was the responsibility of the Republican [Guard] army, [but] definitely the [American] bombing had an effect,” Naqib said.

“The army for 12 years stayed as it was [after the 1991 Persian Gulf War]. There was no replacement of weapons, no modernization. It was more than 50% degraded from 1990.

With such conditions, when U.S. forces drove their tanks into Baghdad, the city’s defenses folded.

“After the American Army entered the main positions in Baghdad -- the airport, the palaces -- it was over,” he said.

As Naqib looked ahead, much that motivated him for so many years seemed to be turning to dust. The ideals of a Pan-Arab state, the power of Iraq in the region and even the country’s secularism now appear at risk.

“The other Arab countries turned their back on Iraq,” he said.

His hope for the new Iraqi government is that it will be “just and governed by law.” The last time that was the case, he said, was during the Hashemite monarchy that ruled Iraq from 1932 until 1958. “All the different groups in Iraqi society were [treated] equally,” he said, referring to the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam, the Christians, the Kurds and the Arabs.

Only “a strong hand” can rule such a divided place, he said.

At 3:40 on Wednesday afternoon, Naqib was taking a nap while Kaissi, his cousin, drove across the Tigris River to negotiate the final details of his surrender.

Kaissi’s main concern was that Naqib be given some dignity when he turned himself over. In the end, the negotiation was over where Naqib would sit in the vehicle that would take him from the palace where he would give himself up to the place where he would be held.

“They said, ‘We have a Land Rover; he can sit in the back. I said, ‘No way, he’s a general -- he can’t sit in the back of a Land Rover.’ ”

So for the military man who said over and over that he loved “the military life,” the Americans agreed he would travel in the front seat of a Humvee.

Naqib arrived at the palace at 5 o’clock. For a few awkward minutes, there seemed to be no one there to receive him. He waited in his car, smoking a cigarette, watching the sun slant toward the horizon as the call to evening prayer went out from the neighboring mosques.

The wait lasted just a few minutes. Then Lt. Brian Wirtz emerged and Naqib opened the door of his car, fumbling with his worry beads, buttoning his suit coat and handing his attache case to Kaissi to hold.

He shook Wirtz’s hand and without a backward glance walked inside the palace gates.

Times staff writer Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.