now why is he telling them the "official" story if they were there...?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/121803hickey.html

Col. Hickey tells his troops to keep quiet about Saddam capture

It sounds to me that Hickey is giving them what turned out to be the official story before warning them to shut up about what really happened. Why would Hickey need to tell them that he was found 'literally hiding in a hole' if they had found him? They would already know this. This is consistent with reports claiming Saddam was handed over to the US by Kurdish militia on November 20-23.