A poignant obituary for a mass-murdering tyrant, based on the recollections of Saddam’s military nurse, brought to you by (who else?) the Associated Press: Military nurse recalls softer Saddam.

Get out your hankies.

ST. LOUIS - A military nurse who cared for Saddam Hussein in jail said the deposed dictator saved bread crusts to feed birds and seldom complained to his captors, except when he had legitimate gripes.

Master Sgt. Robert Ellis cared for the former Iraqi dictator from January 2004 until August 2005 at Camp Cropper, the compound near Baghdad where Saddam and other “high value detainees” were held. Ellis, 56, an operating room nurse in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, said he was ordered to do whatever was needed to keep Saddam alive.

“That was my job: to keep him alive and healthy, so they could kill him at a later date,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story published Sunday. Saddam was executed Saturday.

Ellis checked on Saddam twice a day and wrote a daily report on Saddam’s physical and emotional condition. Saddam told Ellis that cigars and coffee kept his blood pressure down, and it seemed to work. Saddam would insist that Ellis smoke with him.

Ellis said Saddam did not complain much, and, when he did, his complaint was usually legitimate. “He had very good coping skills,” Ellis said.

Saddam shared with Ellis memories of happier times when his children were young. The former dictator described telling the youngsters bedtime stories and giving his daughter half a Tums tablet when she had a stomachache.

When he was allowed short visits outside, Saddam would feed the birds crusts of bread saved from his meals. He also watered a dusty plot of weeds. “He said he was a farmer when he was young and he never forgot where he came from,” Ellis said.

UPDATE at 1/1/07 7:15:19 pm:

The original report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has much more detail, and is much less laudatory to the tyrant—and shows by contrast how much the AP spun Robert Ellis’s interview: Area nurse remembers days monitoring Saddam’s health.

From the comfort of his family room in Normandy, Robert Ellis watched as the man he had been charged with keeping alive, the same man he risked his own life to protect, refused a hood before he was executed Friday night.

It was typical Saddam Hussein, Ellis said.

“Saddam was gangsta’,” he said, brutal and tough. But Ellis had seen another side of the former dictator and knew him in a way few others could.

Ellis had been called up in late 2003 from the Army Reserve and had no idea what his mission would be. From January 2004 until August 2005, Master Sgt. Ellis was the senior medical adviser at the compound near Baghdad where Saddam and other “high value detainees” were jailed.

A colonel told him directly: “Saddam Hussein cannot die in U.S. custody. You do whatever you have to do to keep him alive.”

Ellis, 56, an operating room nurse at St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles, understood the orders.

“That was my job: to keep him alive and healthy, so they could kill him at a later date.”

Ellis cleared his mind of the atrocities linked to Saddam. He set aside judgment; others would judge.

Ellis took care of a tyrant. In doing so, he heard Saddam read his poetry, talk about his children and wonder about the fate of his country.