EXCLUSIVE: SADDAM HUSSEIN SPIT ON A G.I. AS HE WAS HANDCUFFED LAST WEEK OUTSIDE HIS SPIDER HOLE, U.S. GOVERNMENT SOURCES TELL TIME - SOLDIER PROMPTLY SLUGGED SADDAM

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New York – U.S. government sources familiar with the accounts given by troops who helped capture Saddam Hussein tell TIME that the fallen dictator apparently made one feeble attempt at defiance, TIME's Timothy Burger and Phil Zabriskie report. As soldiers were handcuffing him after he was extracted from his "spider hole," these sources say, Saddam spit on his captor.

As the incident was reported by the military, according to a U.S. source, a soldier promptly slugged the old tyrant -- probably the first time in more than two decades that Saddam was powerless to exact lethal revenge on someone who stood up to him.

An official military spokeswoman in Iraq claims no knowledge of the incident. "I think this is an urban legend," she says. But the full story is yet to be told. A U.S. intelligence official, meanwhile, casts doubt on another widely reported tale: that a U.S. soldier hailed the nemesis of two Commanders in Chief named George Bush by saying: "Regards from President Bush." This person says some officials suspect the story is "apocryphal."

The full text of the story will be on TIME.com Sunday evening.

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Media Contact:

Debra Richman, TIME 212-522-6856

Ty Trippet, TIME 212-522-3640

Jennifer Zawadzinski, TIME 212-522-9046