Chicago Tribune July 23, 2003
Deaths expected to boost Iraqis' confidence in allies
By Laurie Goering and E.A. Torriero, Chicago Tribune.
Michael Kilian of the Tribune's Washington Bureau contributed to this report.
Celebratory gunfire erupted in the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday night as word spread that Saddam Hussein's two sons, Udai and Qusai, had been killed after a standoff with coalition troops in Mosul.
Even before the coalition's top general confirmed that "we're certain Udai and Qusai were killed today," thousands of Iraqis raced outside with AK-47s and pistols and fired into the air for nearly half an hour.
"It's a kind of celebration," said Abed Mohammed, 45, a security guard in Baghdad's posh Al-Mesbah district. "I think if they're behind the attacks [on coalition] soldiers, it will have a big effect."
Analysts and military officials called the deaths of the two brutal brothers a "big win" for the U.S.-led coalition, which still is searching for Saddam Hussein, and a relief for Iraqis who worry that Iraq's former leader and his family might find some way to return to power.
"I believe very firmly this will have an effect. This will prove to the Iraqi people that at least these two members of the regime will not be coming back to power," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said at a news conference before midnight Tuesday.
U.S. experts agreed that the successful raid, which followed an Iraqi tip Monday night, should provide a psychological boost for coalition efforts and perhaps also a lift for the Bush administration, which has come under criticism recently over mounting U.S. casualties.
"It will certainly be a boost," said Bathsheba Crocker, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and one of the experts who recently visited Iraq at the request of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq. "There are a lot of people out there we've been trying to get--Osama bin Laden, Saddam and his sons--and every one we do get is important."
For many Iraqis, who want assurances that Hussein's regime is permanently gone before speaking out against it, the deaths should make an important psychological difference, she said.
"There's still a palpable fear of Saddam coming back, and the silent majority out there is not ready to get to the point of changing their mind-set because of this ongoing fear of regime elements," Crocker said. "But these two were close enough to him [that] it will be a step in showing we're moving toward the regime not coming back."
That "buys coalition forces a little bit more of a receptive population," she said. "That's certainly a boost from every perspective."
The raid's success also could serve to dampen criticism from those arguing that Bush failed to prepare adequately for a postwar struggle in Iraq and used discredited intelligence in its push to launch the war.
A step in transformation
Anthony Cordesman, military analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on Iraq, said the deaths of the two brothers should be considered a major step forward in the transformation of that country.
"Though they were subordinate to Saddam, it was Udai who founded and led the Fedayeen Saddam [paramilitary squads] and Qusai who . . . controlled Iraq's intelligence and security forces," Cordesman said. "They were the symbols of the horror and abuses. If we have shown we can locate and kill them, it will have a huge impact on the whole country."
He said the swift success of the Mosul operation is likely to encourage other informants to step forward.
"It sends a message to other Iraqis that the U.S. is not through going after the regime," he said. "It will have a tremendous morale impact on U.S. troops."
Patrick Garrett, who has studied the Iraqi military for GlobalSecurity.org, a suburban Washington organization, also called the military success "a huge morale boost for a White House that has been taking a beating lately over Iraq. It will have a positive impact on the U.S. mission."
Whether the deaths of the former regime leader's sons might lead to a decline in the rash of deadly armed assaults against coalition soldiers, however, remains in question.
Garrett said the effect probably was largely symbolic because the sons likely had little control over the guerrillas.
"It's unclear how much influence Saddam's sons had over the past two months on the attacks," he said, "They were mostly in hiding and on the run. So I don't see [the deaths] as causing an immediate decline in the numbers" of attacks.
The coming days will reveal if attacks decline, he said.
"That will be the test," Garrett said. The deaths "may demoralize the opposition or inflame them."
While initial reaction to news reports was positive in Baghdad, analysts said they believed many Iraqis would need to see proof that Hussein's sons were dead--through solid photographic evidence, for instance.
"Seeing is believing. They will want to see them," Crocker said. "We may have to push our comfort level with showing dead bodies on television."
Sanchez promised that "additional details" about the bodies, which were flown to another location for tests, would be made available Wednesday. But he said the corpses were "in a condition where you could identify them," raising expectations photos might be released.
Four killed
Hussein's two sons, another man believed to be a bodyguard and a teenager thought to be Qusai's son were killed after what Sanchez described as a fierce gun battle at the house, and their identities were confirmed through "multiple sources," the general said.
Johanna Mendelson-Forman, a United Nations Foundation expert who recently visited Iraq at Bremer's and Rumsfeld's request, said the military's successful strike Tuesday was "a major step forward" for the U.S.-led coalition.
"If they got No. 2 and 3," she predicted, "No. 1 is not far behind."
SHAPING IRAQ'S FUTURE.
GRAPHIC: PHOTOPHOTO: A soldier signals Tuesday for two to come forward from a group seeking a spot on the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad.
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