Published excerpts of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi prison writings showed that he feared that he would contract HIV and other sexually transmitted infections during his time in U.S. custody, The Associated Press (AP)/Yahoo News reports (news.yahoo.com, 4/5).

According to the excerpts, when Saddam found out that U.S. military guards were using the same laundry line to dry their clothes that he used, he demanded that they stop.

“I explained to them that they are young and they could have young people’s diseases,” Saddam wrote. “My main concern was to not catch a venereal disease, an HIV disease, in this place.”