Former UK Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford told Sputnik the US is establishing a record of "systematic deception" in its now-discredited public accounts of the capture of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the assassination of Al-Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani.

Monday marked the two-year anniversary of the US assassination of Soleimani, less than a week after the 15th anniversary of Saddam Hussein's execution.

"It is helpful when a counter-narrative with the ring of truth eventually emerges because cumulatively the United States is establishing a track record of systematic deception," Ford said. "When the US kills or captures its eminent enemies, deception is a standard operating procedure (SOP)."

Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006, after the United States invaded Iraq under the guise of looking for weapons of mass destruction, which of course were never found.

Following Hussein's arrest at the end of 2003, the Pentagon claimed that he was discovered hiding in an eight-foot-deep hole beneath a farm. However, a former US military interpreter told Sputnik that Hussein was arrested in a room and was unconscious at the time.

"In the endgame of the illegal invasion of Iraq, the US was terrified lest Saddam emerges as a hero, defeated but unbowed. Regardless of the truth, the politics demanded that Saddam be arrested in humiliating conditions," Ford said. "It can't be proven, of course, but seen in this light the interpreter's denial of the story that Saddam was found cowering in a hole must be seen as highly likely to be true."

Soleimani's martyrdom 

Ford recalled that, in the case of Soleimani, who was martyred by a US drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, "no proof was ever provided" to back up Washington's claims that the Iranian Commander was planning imminent operations against US troops.

"The same SOP was used, obviously, to justify the original invasion of Iraq with fabricated charges of production of weapons of mass destruction. Similarly, Syria was framed with crisis actors for alleged use of chemical weapons," Ford said.

Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi, he added, was assassinated after the US made up a story that his troops were planning a bloodbath in Benghazi.

According to Ford, the US government continues to fabricate these stories because "it gets away with it."

"Most international media uncritically relays the US narrative," Ford concluded. "Occasionally, as with Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), the US gets found out, but by that time the caravan has moved on."