Word: saddamism
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...Hashim Kamal al Naami, a 78-year-old political exile living in Ukraine started crying when he heard that the rumors of Saddam?s capture were confirmed. ?I can?t believe it,? he said over a satellite phone to his son in Baghdad. A lawyer and retired staff brigadier for the Iraqi Army who was openly critical of Saddam?s regime, al-Naami finally concluded that it is now safe to return, after more than a decade of living abroad. ?There?s no need for me to stay away anymore,? he said over the phone. While he was speaking...
...There was no celebration in Tikrit, Saddam?s home town, and elsewhere former regime members were sullen and glum, looking for further proof, refusing to believe even when word came that the confirmation went beyond the local authorities, beyond the CIA and the Pentagon, down to the level of his scars and his cells, a DNA test. According to Senator Pat Roberts, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the U.S. had some of Saddam?s senior aides driven to Tikrit to view him and confirm it was him. A shopkeeper there named Basim al-Tikriti said, ?I am shocked...
...Does this mean that the attacks on U.S. soldiers every day, the roadside bombs and downtown ambushes and mortars fired at headquarters would die away? There never was good evidence that Saddam was controlling the insurgency, and the circumstances in which he was found - hiding in a hole, accompanied by an entourage of only two - suggest he was too isolated to play any central role. However, his arrest could still profoundly rattle the resistance. The Pentagon estimated that nine of 10 insurgents were former regime loyalists. To the extent they were driven by a rational agenda - restoring the old regime...
...There are practical reasons to think Saddam?s capture may help quell the resistance. For one thing, even if Saddam?s leadership was not central to the insurgency, his money likely was. Many of the resistance fighters the U.S. has picked up were essentially mercenaries, former criminals or jobless men who were paid to strike U.S. forces. His arrest increases the chance that Iraqis will feel safe to turn in other insurgents, as happened after the siege that ended in the deaths of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay...
...There remains, however, the resistance fighters who have no loyalty to Saddam but fight for other, larger causes. They will likely be affected in different ways: the jihadis are not known to have yet established in Iraq their own infrastructure for fighting. Rather, they are thought to have joined up with Baathists, who can provide them the intelligence, the money, the munitions and the vehicles to deliver them in their attacks. To the extent the Baathists are hurt, they may be hurt...