Drudge tip: 13WHAM.com, Channel 13 in Rochester, NY, published a UPI story where an Ex-Marine says the military fabricated the circumstances of Saddam’s arrest.

“I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced,” Abou Rabeh said.

“We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed,” he said.

The army specialist who signed my copy of Robin Moore’s journalistic account would not have endorsed (he was there) Moore’s story nor signed the book if the spider-hole account were not true.

The media is not the military’s friend. A cover-up would have been instantly exposed. Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, revealed this story to the Saudi press a year and almost three months after the event. Perhaps he was approached by Eason Jordan, another person willing to distort the truth to make Saddam look better.

What difference does it make whether we pulled him from a spider hole, arrested him from a small cottage, or nabbed him in one of his palaces? Why does it matter whether he was pulled out saying “Don’t shoot. Don’t kill me” or if he surrendered after firing upon our men first? Is this less about Saddam, or more about gaining a job with the Saudis or Lebanese as a Minister of Propaganda? This ex-Marine no longer seems Semper or Fidelis.

Update, 5:23 pm: Free Republic posts more conflicts about this story.