The very best interrogators are on the job. Of that there can be no doubt. I sometimes wonder, though, if they are so intent on gleaning information from Saddam that they miss the best possible form of coercion available with a man of Saddam’s ego.
Interrogators use many forms of torture to elicit information. I’ve experienced some of these when I went through the mock POW camp in USAF Survival School many years ago. The most effective involve no physical pain at all. In fact, if information is the true goal of interrogation, pain is bad. Pain makes people say anything to make it stop. If you want propaganda value, inflicting pain is a good way to get the answers you want to hear. But the answers may have nothing to do with fact.
What Saddam’s interrogators want from him is reliable information. To get it will require something other than inflicting pain. The threat of pain could have some effect. But just a little pain goes a long way if someone expects a lot of it for the wrong response. I see no way of using this with Saddam. He understands the US is not going to hurt him physically. Some of his former subjects may want that, but as long as he is cooperative with the US, he can expect to stay safe.
He also knows that some information may save him from death. That has to be played well in order to make him think he’s getting a reprieve without actually giving him one. He may be in denial. During all his time in power, leaders of other nations have allowed him to do what he wants