WASHINGTON (Reuters):

Robert Ellis, interviewed at his home in Normandy, Missouri, told the newspaper in an article published on Sunday that from January 2004 to August 2005 he was the senior medical adviser at a compound near Baghdad where Saddam and other important detainees were jailed.

A colonel told Ellis: "Saddam Hussein cannot die in U.S. custody. You do whatever you have to do to keep him alive," the newspaper reported.

"That was my job: to keep him alive and healthy so they could kill him at a later date," said Ellis, 56, an operating room nurse at St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles, Missouri.