Stardate 20031215.1051

(Captain's log): Douglas writes:

One of the significant things to me about Saddam's capture was the task force that got him, a mixture of infantry, special forces, some intelligence types, and the way the intelligence and tips were expedited for action. I think there are about 14 more cards left in the most wanted deck. So I am thinking the coalition will form up more of these task forces. The capture and killing of the opposition and the destruction of their resources in Iraq may go exponential. So the US may soon be at a point say "Next!"

What's gotten less publicity is that it was also a joint venture with a pretty decent sized group of highly motivated Iraqis. I saw a report yesterday about one of them, who had survived the torture chambers and been released. He's a Kurd and bitterly hates the Baathists, and he is apparently the leader of the Iraqis involved in this effort. Alas, though I'm a link packrat I didn't keep that link. This morning I was thinking I should try to find it, so I could write about "Iraq's Elliot Ness".

Ralph Peters writes today about our success in the shadow war. It involved a hell of a lot more than "some intelligence types". But it is the nature of the shadow war that most of its successes are invisible; it is only occasionally, with a high-profile victory like this one, that we see the fruits of their efforts.

Saddam doesn't appear to have been heavily involved in the insurgency; he wasn't directing its operations in detail. However, when he was captured they did capture some documents which included letters written to him by top members of the insurgency, and the word is that this led to further raids almost as soon as they could be mounted. (That's the kind of thing they're not going to want to publicize heavily until they're finished, for fear of giving away the game.)

Saddam also began to spend quality time with American interrogators almost as soon as he was in our hands, and I suspect that the insurgency was the first subject they talked about. It's not that it is more important than any of the other things they'll want to talk to him about, but it was definitely more urgent, since once news of his capture leaked out a lot of those he could finger would bolt.

That doesn't mean the insurgency is finished. It doesn't mean an end to the attacks. In the short term there may even be an increase in the frequency and destructiveness. But in the long run this will mean very serious trouble for the insurgency.

After the invasion, Saddam was a bogeyman for a lot of Iraqis. The overwhelming presence in their lives for 30 years, heartless, inexorable, brutal, irresistible; he had been built up to be seen as more than a man, almost a demigod. For many Iraqis, there was a deep-down fear that not even Americans could defeat a demigod, and that someday, somehow, some way, Saddam might return to power. After all, even with all the American's power and wizard weapons, Saddam had slipped through their fingers, and continued the resistance. He would wait for the Americans to tire and leave, and would once again rule Iraq. When that happened, there could be no question of the horrible fate which awaited any who had worked with the Americans and supported them, so the safe play was to not take sides, to stay neutral. You may not make friends that way, but you also don't make enemies, and that's more important.

I think that the Baathists are feared, but the rest of the Baathists are seen as men, just men. It was Saddam himself who was seen as more than that. As long as Saddam was still out there somewhere, there was doubt and fear of him.

But now the demigod has been revealed to be a broken old man. The defiant leader who had promised resistance to the end didn't, once it came down to it, even have the courage to resist capture or to shoot himself to prevent it. Other Arabs are now openly referring to him as a "coward". The magnificent presence, who had lived in palaces and whose visage was everywhere in Iraq, as statues and murals and pictures in magazines and newspapers and in books; that magnificent presence was found living in a hole in the ground, burrowing like an animal to save himself. Ralph Peters also writes about how this shatters not only the semi-religious image of Saddam, but also that same kind of attitude towards the other dictators in that region.

Saddam was old, broken, defeated. In fact, he would almost seem pitiable in his degradation, were it not for our knowledge of his monstrous past. He will eventually face trial for his crimes against the Iraqi people, for mass murder and for routine torture and all the other horrible policies of his regime. Almost certainly he'll be tried before an Iraqi tribunal, and then will be executed. It's possible it might be a public execution, but even if not there will be witnesses; there will be no doubt in the minds of the Iraqi people of his fate, no doubt that he was dead and had been punished for his acts.

I've received letters from people asking how he should be treated to make him feel at least a bit of the horror he gave so many others. Should he be tortured before execution? If so, how? I am not interested in that kind of thing; I do not want him punished out of revenge, and I see no reason to make