MotherJones.com June 24, 2003
Saddam Or Not Saddam?
"It's like Elvis. There's a lot of sightings of him all over the place."
-- Jordan's King Abdullah, on the recent increase in Saddam Hussein "sightings."
If today is Tuesday, then Saddam must be alive. By tomorrow, maybe he'll be dead again. Or so goes the thinking in Washington, which can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants Saddam alive or dead.
Rumors of the deposed dictator's whereabouts -- is he walking the earth or six feet under it? -- continue to swirl. Was he killed during the first minutes of the war? Or was he vaporized during air strikes on a convoy sprinting toward the Syrian border last week? Is he sitting on the beach in northern Syria, or hiding out in the "Sunni Triangle" north of Baghdad, sheltered by Ba'athist diehards and relatives?
The truth is anyone's guess. Just yesterday, reports emerged suggesting that he had offered to surrender to US forces. On the Sunday talk shows, however, lawmakers speculated that Hellfire strikes on a fleeing convoy might have killed him and at least one of his sons. "I will not be surprised at any military action that would lead to the possibility that we have now finally killed Saddam Hussein," Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, told FOX News. Unnamed Pentagon officials also told reporters that Saddam may have been in the convoy.
As of this writing, however, no one knows who was in those speeding SUVs. It could have been the man himself; it could have been a collection of Ba'ath officials; it also could have been a convoy of innocent civilians. Only time, and DNA testing, will tell.
Senator Roberts notwithstanding, the most popular theory appears to be that Saddam is still on the lam in Iraq, providing inspiration to those willing to fight the American occupation. For a US administration mired in an increasingly nasty guerrilla war, this line of reasoning has a reassuring, if highly suspect, corrollary: Find Saddam, and the resistance will melt away. According to L. Paul Bremer, Baghdad's new American viceroy, it's not the lack of electricity, water, or security that's turning Iraqis against the US. It's Saddam's lingering influence.
"'The fact that we have not been able to prove conclusively that he is dead or capture him alive is an intimidating factor for some people in this country,' he said on Tuesday.
'It intimidates people into saying "we don't want to cooperate because we are afraid the Baath is going to come back".'"
Whatever the merits of Bremer's argument, finding Saddam has proven extremely difficult. This report from the BBC helps explain why:
"But here in Tikrit, the graffiti on the main street says it all.
'Saddam exists,' it proclaims, 'And you can't buy Iraq with your dollars'. Bush and Blair get only curses."
If Saddam disappears into the sands like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the London Independent's Andrew Buncombe notes, it could come back to haunt the Bush administration:
"In the run-up to the war, Mr Bush repeatedly highlighted Saddam as the cause of Iraqi suffering and the sole reason why the US and Britain were prepared to 'disarm' the regime. At times it became very personal. As far back as November 2001, Mr Bush said: 'Saddam is evil.' But as the war started and it became increasingly clear that Saddam might not be found, so the administration changed its language. Mr Bush's spokesman said: 'So clearly, the future or the fate of Saddam Hussein is a factor but ... whether he is or is not alive or dead, the mission is moving forward, and the regime's days are numbered.'
The shift in language represents an understanding at the White House that it cannot allow itself to be judged on whether Saddam is found. After the war in Afghanistan, the administration was criticised for failing to find either al-Qa'ida's leader, Osama bin Laden, or the head of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, having declared, in the case of Bin Laden, that he was wanted 'Dead or alive'. For Saddam to appear on grainy videotape broadcast by an Arab news channel and vowing resistance to the US during the build-up to the presidential elections would be damaging politically and hugely embarrassing.
'Saddam is the [Iraqi] regime personified,' said François Boo, of the Washington-based military research group GlobalSecurity.Org. 'It's much easier to declare victory if you have captured the leader of the country and the person said to represent the major obstacle to rebuilding.' The flip-side is the huge PR coup capturing Saddam would represent for Mr Bush and Mr Blair. The war on Iraq was always presented as a fight between good and evil with Saddam playing the part of the devil. If they could actually find him, both Mr Bush's chances of securing re-election and Mr Blair's of silencing Labour critics would receive a massive boost."
Copyright © 2003, The Foundation for National Progress
