DailyKos: Saddam Captured; What's Next?

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Saddam Captured; What's Next?
by DHinMI
Sun Dec 14th, 2003 at 14:20:33 UTC

They dug him out of a hole.

It's one of the most ignominious ends to a tyrant's freedom, almost as humiliating an end to his reign as when the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were dangled from a pole in the Piazza Loreto in Milan, like deer carcasses being bled out in a hunting camp. Saddam's done, and the world is a better place for it.

Clearly there will be celebrating by many in Iraq. But what's next? The U.S. officials haven't indicated what will be done with Saddam, but Ahmed Chalabi is already making declarations that Saddam will go on public trial before the Iraqi people. Will there be a public trial? Will the U.S. chose to keep Saddam quiet?

What about weapons of mass destruction? Now we've got the guy in custody, and he's probably beaten and demoralized. Maybe he'll be like Milosevic and stay defiant, but the early pictures don't show a man with the energy to maintain resistance. So he may be inclined to tell the truth about WMD. But is the truth what the Bush administration wants Saddam to tell?

And what about the continued attacks on American troops? It's hard to imagine Saddam was exerting much operational leadership over the attackers from inside a "spider hole" in which he barely had room to move around. The people attacking coalition troops don't appear to need Saddam around to tell them what to do, and their actions don't appear to be necessarily directed at restoring Baathist control over Iraq as much as evicting the occupying forces from their country. The biggest positive from Saddam's capture will probably be in eliminating the fear that he will return to power. That's a huge relief for many common Iraqis who may now be more emboldened to assist U.S. forces with intelligence about the resistance forces attacking out troops. There may also be less acquiescence by the general population to having the resistance forces move as effortlessly through the country. But it's too early to tell.


continued

and I'll keep on repeating it: those WMDs will be "found" after
they're done interrogating Saddam. He'll conveniently point them
towards Syria...and then the US will invade them as well.

Its so friggin obvious people that they're setting this up...

I was convinced some months ago that they'd find Saddam was being harbored by Syria and thus justifying an attack against this nation. However, by your theory, Bush can pull our forces out of Iraq and use them to fight the next war. Hello Syria. You're f*cked. So are the troops, which will be continually recycled to fight in the Bush Oil Wars. :(

Okay, so it's off with one head of the Hydra. What do we do with the cunning and charismatic new leader who wants to replace Saddam, but has his own ideas of how to run Iraq? And what if that man (probably Sadr?) has a distinctly hostile attitude to the U.S.? Let us wait and see what emerges from Saddam's shadow before we feel secure.

BTW, a friend of mine, who is extremely politically and historically astute, says one very likely scenario is that Iraq will erupt into civil war.

Now the real infighting for power comes....

Shrub will milk this for all it's worth, justifying the war on the basis of deposing the evildoer.