Soon after Saddam Hussein's capture—out of an eight-foot hole that one observer said was filled with rats and mice—he was flown to a secret location for a meeting with four members of Iraq's Governing Council. They wanted to confirm that it was indeed Saddam Hussein. When the men were offered the chance to see Saddam through a window or by camera, they said, "No, we want to talk to him."

Despite his condition, Saddam was defiant and unrepentant. Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, said: "He was quite lucid. He had command of his faculties. He would not apologize to the Iraqi people. He did not deny any of the crimes he was confronted with having done. He tried to justify them."

"The world is crazy," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, one of the council members in the room. "I was in his torture chamber in 1979, and now he was sitting there powerless in front of me without anybody stopping me from doing anything to him, just imagine. We were arguing, and he was using very foul language."

The four men spent about 30 minutes in the small room, confronting Saddam with his crimes. As they left, Mr. Rubaie delivered these final words to the former dictator: "May God curse you. Tell me, when are you going to be accountable to God and the Day of Judgment? What are you going to tell him about Halabja and the mass graves, the Iran-Iraq war, thousands and thousands executed? What are you going to tell God?"

Saddam answered using foul language.