Robert Ellis (United States Army nurse)

Master Sergeant Robert Ellis is a retired United States Army nurse that from January 2004 until August 2005, cared for Saddam Hussein and his cousins. He was the senior medical adviser at the compound at Camp Cropper near Baghdad. He was instructed to call Saddam by his code name "Victor," in case any agency or groups came looking for him. When Ellis told Saddam he had to leave for America because his brother was dying, Saddam hugged him and said he would be his brother.

MSG Robert Ellis was a member of the 439th MP Detachment.

Quotes

• "I was there to help him, and he respected that," Mr Ellis said. Saddam never discussed dying and expressed no regrets about his rule. "He said everything he did was for Iraq," Mr Ellis said. "One day when I went to see him, he asked why we invaded."
• "I said, 'That's politics. We soldiers don't get caught up in that sort of thing."

External links

• Nurse tells of 'gardener' Saddam
• Military Nurse Recalls Softer Saddam
• Saddam was model prisoner, says nurse
• Nurse: Dictator spent captivity feeding birds
• Nurse: Saddam showed different side in prison
• Saddam tended birds and plants in jail, nurse says
• Saddam wrote poetry and fed birds