The NY Post July 23, 2003
Big Win In Battle For Hearts & Minds
By Niles Lathem
July 23, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - The deaths of Saddam Hussein's detested sons, Uday and Qusay, hand U.S. forces an important psychological victory in the grueling battle for peace in Iraq.
But their violent demise will not necessarily stop the guerrilla attacks on coalition troops.
That was the conclusion of analysts within and outside the Bush administration last night after the once-powerful scions of Saddam's evil empire were killed at a time when a siege mentality had descended not only on GIs in Iraq, but also on President Bush's overall Iraq policy.
"I believe very firmly that this will have an impact," said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who announced the deaths in Baghdad.
"It will prove to the Iraqi population that these two Iraqi regime members will not come back to power and torment the Iraqi people."
Peter Singer, a former Pentagon official now with the Brookings Institution in Washington, said, "It's certainly a victory, a good first step. It shows that the circle is really starting to close on Saddam and that we really are the new boss in town."
But military analyst John Pike, head of the Globalsecurity.org defense think tank, was more cautious.
"It might be premature to declare total victory, but we've now got three of the four aces accounted for - psychologically that's very important," he said.
Throughout this violent summer, U.S. officials in Iraq have repeatedly said that as long as Saddam and his two sons remained on the loose, an aura of uncertainty would hang over the Iraqi people, and the resistance from Ba'ath Party thugs and outside terrorists would continue.
In an effort to calm the fears of the Iraqi people, the U.S. military is considering releasing pictures of the bodies of Uday and Qusay, to prove they're really dead, CNN reported.
Still photos of the bodies were taken after the raid, the reported said. Pentagon officials told CNN the bodies - though badly shot up - are recognizable.
Intelligence sources told The Post last night that all available information indicates that Saddam's sons were not involved in the postwar fighting but have been on the run, trying to save their hides, since the fall of Baghdad.
"Their presence in Mosul, which is in the north and not a place where support for Saddam is that strong, rather than in the Sunni triangle [around Baghdad and Tikrit], where most of the trouble is taking place and where there is more local support, indicates that they were either hiding out in a place they thought we might not be looking for them or trying to escape the country," said an intelligence official.
Military officials expect the guerrilla attacks, which average 12 a day, to continue as long as Saddam himself remains at large.
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