Saddam Hussein's capture is being feted in Washington as a political and personal triumph for George W. Bush that further increases his chances of winning re-election next year.
Many Americans, misled by the administration and its media allies into believing Saddam was somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks, are lustily cheering Sheriff Bush and his posse. They are unaware the demonized Iraqi leader used to be Washington's man in Mesopotamia.
Nor do they understand the astounding price of this manhunt: a war costing over US$160 billion so far that violated international law and America's democratic and moral traditions; surging hatred of the US abroad; over 3,000 US military casualties and many thousand Iraqis; and the ongoing burden of colonial occupation.
But catching outlaw Saddam - which was inevitable - and stringing him may not make US pacification of the Dodge City of Iraq any easier, as Washington hopes, nor the US any safer. In fact, it may make occupation more difficult.
First, until Saddam's capture, Iraq's Shia majority (60% of Iraqis) remained quiescent, grudgingly accepting foreign occupation for fear Saddam might otherwise return to power.
But with Saddam locked up, Shias are free to forcefully express their pent-up demands for real political power and an Islamic Republic. This will bring a head-on clash with US authorities who are determined to thwart any Iranian-style government. Radical Shia elements have been calling for months for guerilla war against the US occupation. This is a storm waiting to break, unless Washington can find a way of satisfying long-repressed Shia thirst for power.
Second, during the invasion of Iraq last spring, the elite units of Iraq's army scattered into small units the face of overwhelming US firepower and mobility, adopting a long-standing plan to resort to guerrilla war. Hence the surprisingly short Iraq invasion campaign and light resistance in Baghdad. Iraqi forces were following the example of Afghanistan's Taliban, which abandoned the capitol and dissolved into small units fighting from the mountains. In both cases, claims of decisive victory by the US military and pro-war pundits were mistaken.
Nine of the twelve Iraqi resistance groups are either anti-Saddam secular nationalists, or Islamists, who were savagely repressed by the former regime. They are fighting foreign occupation, not for Saddam. The coming month will determine if the resistance is merely `Saddam Hussein diehards' or genuine national insurgency. Many suicide bombers are newly arrived freelance foreign `jihadists' inspired by al-Qaida.
Third, US Proconsul Paul Bremer's decision to disband Iraq's army was a colossal error. Unemployed soldiers are a volatile, dangerous mass and a source of resistance fighters. The Iraqi military and police forces the US is trying to cobble together will mostly prove unreliable, unwarlike and treacherous.
Interestingly, many Sunni Iraqis believe Saddam did not abjectly surrender but was captured unconscious after being gassed by US forces in the course of a major battle. However undeserving, he may yet become a martyr.
Still, the elimination of Saddam and his sons opens the way for the emergence of a new generation of Iraqi nationalist leaders who may prove far more clever and popular than the widely hated ancien regime.
Saddam is to face a kangaroo court in Baghdad. Such hang'em high injustice, propelled by President Bush's unwise call for the death penalty, is worthy of Saddam's regime, not the United States. There are no fair courts in the Arab World. President Hussein should be sent for trial before the UN's war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The US engineered Serb tyrant Slobodan Milosevic's delivery there; why should Saddam be different?
A UN trial could improve America's current negative reputation around the globe, and at least buttress Bush's lame, ex post facto claim that the invasion of Iraq was all about human rights.
The greatest crime for which Saddam should be tried was his aggression against Iran in 1980. Iran suffered 500,000 casualties, 10% from Iraqi chemical weapons. The US and Britain encouraged Saddam to invade Iran, helped bankroll Iraq's war effort, and supplied him technicians, intelligence, conventional, chemical, and biological weapons.
If allowed a fair, open trial, Saddam would surely divulge how CIA helped his Ba'ath Party into power, his role as obedient servant of the west during the era of his worst internal and external crimes, and explosive revelations about his collusion during the 1980's with Donald Rumsfeld, and senior CIA and US military officials. Plus embarrassing dirt about other US-backed Arab autocrats.
So it's unlikely the Bush Administration will allow an open trial for the rogue dictator. He knows far too much. Better to bury Saddam in prison like another petty despot who dared mock the Bush family, Panama's former general, and now US prisoner, Manuel Noriega.
Israeli commentator Ze'ev Schiff suggests the White House might offer Saddam a deal: a life prison sentence in exchange for a false confession that he had indeed made and hidden weapons of mass destruction, thus absolving Bush and VP Cheney of making extravagant lies to whip up war against Iraq. This would inflict mass political destruction on Bush's leading presidential rival, the anti-war Democrat, Howard Dean.
Foreign Correspondent
Foreign Correspondent
