"I saved the world from Saddam Hussein." Blink-182's Mark Hoppus reveals his role in the US military's capture of authoritarian Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein

Hoppus and Hussein — (Image credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Children's Hospital Los Angeles | KAREN BALLARD/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Blink-182 fans purchasing a copy of vocalist/bassist Mark Hoppus' recent autobiography Fahrenheit-182: A Memoir might reasonably anticipate entertaining tales of on-the-road high-jinks, reflections upon the life-changing consequences of selling tens of millions of albums, and, more soberly, recollections of the Californian musician's successful battle against blood cancer. What one almost certainly would not expect, would be learning that Hoppus maybe, just possibly, played a pivotal role in the downfall of a much-feared global dictator.

While the US military have yet to formally recognise Hoppus' part in the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003 as part of Operation Red Dawn, the pop-punk star believes that it was his ingenious thinking which paved the way for the successful mission.

“I did, I saved the world from Saddam Hussein," Hoppus tells NME.com in a new interview. “e were performing for the troops in the Middle East, and we were on an aircraft carrier. We performed in the hanger in the Persian Gulf while we were at war, then I was sitting down with the admiral of the fleet after dinner before we went on stage, and I told him, Hey, I have an idea of how we can capture Saddam Hussein.

“He laughed at me," Hoppus admits, “but then I said, I’ve had this idea: you kind of know where’s he’s at, he’s releasing these video tapes to his followers with a flag up behind him where he’d say, ‘Rise up to these American dogs!’ or whatever’. I said, If you have an idea of where he might be, why don’t you fly drones or aircraft in grid patterns, blasting as time code as loud as you can above the range of human hearing but within the dynamic range that would get captured on a video cassette. Then when he releases his video cassette, you can take the audio portion and extract the time code and triangulate where he might be’.

“The admiral looks at me like, ‘What the hell?’ Then he says, ‘I’m actually meeting at the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff next week and I might bring up your idea’. Then, four months later, they had captured Saddam Hussein, so it must have been me.”

On November 5, 2006, Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging.

When NME journalist Andrew Trendell asks, not unreasonably, why there isn't a statue commemorating Hoppus' intervention in geo-politics, the musician modestly replies, “You know, I don’t need that. Just knowing that I saved the world is medal enough.”

What a guy.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.