Kevin,

Grounds please for thinking, "...it is far more likely that he'd have been treated like royalty, coupled with a demand that the Americans withdrew their forces and grounded their aircraft."

If memory serves me correctly, Saddam's last high profile guests from the West, were kidnapped from Kuwait at the start of Desert Storm, used as human shields and shown on TV throughout the world. Remember the shots of Saddam and that obviously terrified little boy (4 years old at the time I think).