The CIA has taken control of the interrogation of Saddam Hussein, US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld this evening but he refused to say whether Saddam was cooperating with his captors.
Mr Rumsfeld said the director of the CIA was now responsible for the management of the information that flows from the interrogations.
Pressed at a Pentagon briefing about the level of Saddam's responsiveness to interrogation he would only say his relationship with his captors is one of resignation.
But he reacted sharply when pressed by reporters on whether the release of the film showing an apparently confused Saddam being examined by a US military doctor was a violation of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of captives.
"If lives can be saved by physical proof that that man is off the street, out of commission, never to return, then we opt for saving lives. And in no way can that be considered even up on the edge of the Geneva Convention protections," he snapped.
"He is being accorded the protection of a POW [prisoner of war], but he's not being legally described as one at this stage. He clearly is being treated under the Geneva Convention, with the protections of the Geneva Convention and is being treated humanely."
He also defended allowing some members of the current Iraqi Governing Council to question Saddam and former members of his fallen government to help identify him.
The Geneva Conventions forbid captors from holding their captives up to public contempt, but Mr Rumsfeld said the meetings were arranged because the US military did not immediately have DNA evidence confirming that the prisoner was Saddam.