Red Cross Visits Saddam in U.S. Custody

GENEVA - Two international Red Cross workers Saturday visited Saddam Hussein in U.S. custody in Iraq, a spokeswoman said.

The delegates - one of them a doctor - saw the ousted Iraqi leader at an undisclosed location, said Nada Doumani, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"The aim of this visit is to track and monitor the conditions of detention and treatment of the detainee," Doumani said, speaking from Amman, Jordan.

"We want to see whether he is getting enough food and water and also to check his health condition and to give him the possibility to write a message to his family, which he did."

The ICRC is mandated to carry out visits to detainees under the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare, but it never comments publicly on the conditions it finds.

Doumani said the ICRC would carry out a second visit to Saddam in due course, but she could not say when that would be.

"We will repeat our visits as long as the person is in detention," she said.

She declined to say how long Saturday's visit had been but said it was "long enough to get answers to the important questions."

The ICRC has been seeking access to Saddam since his capture last Dec. 13. The neutral, Swiss-based agency already has visited most of the 43 other high-ranking Iraqis captured by coalition forces, as well as many other prisoners of war and civilian internees in Iraq.