- "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."
-
- Saddam Hussein's capture is being feted in Washington
as a political and personal triumph for President 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 $160 billion US that violated international law and
America's democratic and moral traditions; surging hatred of the U.S.
abroad;
over 3,000 American military casualties and many thousands of Iraqis; and
the ongoing burden of colonial occupation.
-
- But catching outlaw Saddam - which was inevitable - and
stringing him up may not make U.S. pacification of Iraq any easier, as
Washington hopes, nor the U.S. any safer. In fact, it may make occupation
more difficult.
-
- First, until Saddam's capture, Iraq's Shia majority (60%
of the population) 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 U.S. authorities, who are determined
to thwart any Iranian-style government. Radical Shia elements have been
calling for months for guerrilla war against the American occupation. This
is a storm waiting to break, unless Washington can find a way of satisfying
Shias' long-repressed thirst for power.
-
- Second, during the invasion of Iraq last spring, the
elite elements of Iraq's army scattered into small units in the face of
overwhelming U.S. 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 capital and dissolved into small units
fighting
from the mountains. In both cases, claims of decisive victory by the U.S.
military and pro-war pundits were mistaken.
-
- Nine of the 12 Iraqi resistance groups are either
anti-Saddam
secular nationalists or Islamists who were savagely repressed by the former
regime. They are fighting against 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, U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S.
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 old
regime.
-
- Saddam is to face a kangaroo court in Baghdad.
-
- Such hang-'em-high injustice, propelled by 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.
-
- Saddam should be sent for trial before the UN's war
crimes
tribunal at the Hague. The U.S. engineered Serb tyrant Slobodan Milosevic's
delivery there; why should Saddam be different?
-
- A UN trial could improve America's negative reputation
around the globe, and at least buttress Bush's lame, ex post facto claim
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 U.S. and Britain encouraged Saddam
to invade Iran, helped bankroll Iraq's war effort, and supplied him
technicians
and intelligence plus conventional, chemical, and biological
weapons.
-
- If allowed a fair, open trial, Saddam would surely
divulge
how the 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 relations during the 1980s with Donald
Rumsfeld, and senior CIA and U.S. military officials. Plus embarrassing
dirt about other U.S.-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 U.S. 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 Dick Cheney of the accusation of having made
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.
-
- Eric can be reached by e-mail at
margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.
-
- Copyright © 2003, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe
Inc.
-
- http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_dec21.html
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