Chicago Tribune December 15, 2003
A boost for forces in the fight
By Stephen J. Hedges, Washington Bureau.
Tribune Managing Editor James O'Shea and national correspondent Mike Dorning contributed to this report.
The surprise capture of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein provided a tangible triumph and psychological boost for the 150,000 coalition soldiers in Iraq, but it will not bring a significant shift in the strategy and tactics of U.S. forces there.
U.S. commanders and Pentagon officials said Saturday's events reflected the fact that more useful intelligence is coming from Iraqis, even from the fiercely loyal, tribal cliques in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
Having Hussein in custody, the officials said, lifts the veil of fear that has shrouded the Iraqi people, a development that could work in U.S. forces' favor in the coming weeks.
If it translates into significant gains against insurgents as well as more peace and stability for Iraqis, the toppled dictator's capture could have implications well beyond Iraq. At home, President Bush could find new support for his decision to invade Iraq and his re-election campaign could receive a boost.
Internationally, the United States might be better able to repair relations with European opponents of the war, particularly France and Germany.
Bush's vision for Iraq to become a model of democracy and prosperity in the Middle East could gain credibility. And the global campaign against terrorism would be energized if the U.S. and other nations can shift soldiers and resources out of Iraq into fighting Al Qaeda and other similar groups.
Military leaders in the United States and Iraq emphasized Sunday that it is too early to tell exactly what role Hussein has played in the insurgency and whether his arrest will disrupt attacks on coalition forces. But Pentagon officials were confident it would have some effect.
"The knowledge that existed with him is no longer operational--where the money was, who was doing what," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on CBS's "60 Minutes" program Sunday. "And he now is out of commission, out of circulation, and that's a good thing."
As the interrogation of Hussein begins, the military will want to know the structure and methods of the forces attacking coalition troops, and what his role has been.
Military officials also said that they could only speculate about Hussein's involvement. Many U.S. commanders suspect their enemy is a mishmash of Hussein loyalists, former Baath Party members and paid criminals, with only loose connections to each other.
Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division troops who made the capture, said Sunday that the former Iraqi leader was found in the humblest of circumstances, without cell phones or other means of communications.
"We truly believe that there was no cell phones, no communications equipment," Odierno said. "I know he wasn't coordinating the entire effort, because I believe it's not coordinated nationally, and I don't think it ever was. So I believe there's still some local and regional coordination that goes on. I think he was more there for moral support."
But insurgents in Iraq use personal meetings and hand-delivered instructions, avoiding communications such as a cell phone that could be easily monitored. And soldiers did find a case containing $750,000 in $100 bills in a room near the underground structure where Hussein was hiding.
Something to prove
No matter how vital Hussein was to the insurgency, his detention in the short term could incite a new wave of violence, analysts said, from a guerrilla force intent on proving that its fight is about the U.S. presence in Iraq, and not about a disheveled, fallen leader.
"I don't think we can have a real good idea the extent to which our present difficulties are going to be ameliorated by this," said John Pike, a military analyst at Globalsecurity.org. "It's not evident that he was directly involved in organizing any of this. If anything, we'll probably see a rise in the violence for some time in the few next weeks or several months."
U.S. officials concurred, warning the public and the military not to expect a sudden drop-off in attacks.
Hussein is being held in Iraq, and there is no plan to take him out of the country as the United States has done with the terrorism suspects captured in Afghanistan, according to a government official.
Hussein, even more than the 38 other prominent Baath officials being held by the U.S. forces, may be able to tell interrogators about two sensitive areas for the Bush administration: whether the former regime had weapons of mass destruction and whether it had ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
The coalition and Iraqi Governing Council are intent on holding a trial, rolling out evidence of the Hussein regime's atrocities. Such a spectacle could offer Iraqis a chance to resolve their anger from Hussein's turbulent rule over more than 20 years, while providing more pressure on his allies to concede defeat.
"It is a symbolic event," said Phebe Marr, a historian of modern Iraq and a former senior fellow at National Defense University. "It has more psychological than operational impact. It will help break the wall of fear among the Iraqi people. ... The way he was captured--the fact that he didn't fight, his disheveled look on TV--shows it's over."
Avoiding a similar fate
One likely result, U.S. commanders say, is an increase in cooperation and intelligence from Iraqi citizens. Hussein's fate could even prompt other high-ranking members of his regime to surrender.
During a recent interview, the coalition's civil administrator, Paul Bremer, said the detention of Hussein would help quell the violent attacks aimed American forces.
After Hussein's sons, Udai and Qusai, were killed during a gun battle in the northern city of Mosul on July 22, "We saw a decrease [in attacks], at least for a while," Bremer said. "And we saw other people coming in and talking to us, some people basically turning themselves in, saying, 'I don't want to end up that way.'"
Tikrit, the city that served as Hussein's power base, is still the center of the insurgency and the focal point of the Sunni triangle, a region north and west of Baghdad where the guerrilla attacks has thrived.
Sunni Arabs, estimated to comprise about a fifth of Iraq's population, have dominated political and military power since the Ottoman Empire, before modern Iraq was created.
Marr said the coalition's ability to continue the momentum gained with Hussein's capture will depend on efforts to convince Sunnis that they will play a role in the Iraq envisioned by the Bush administration.
"The recruits to the insurgency come in part from those who have been ousted from power, who have lost their privileges and place, and may feel they have no future in Iraq," the historian said. "We have to find a way to separate the hard-core from the broader-based Sunni Arab community that may be nervous about their future. Their past role as a dominant elite is finished, but some future has to be made for them."
© Copyright 2003, Chicago Tribune Company
