Captive Saddam: A growing burden for the US ?

Saddam was cut off from the insurgents and everyone else, so he could not be directing the insurgency. He was clearly dejected and forlorn, confirming that even his huge ego had come to accept his miserable fate. Observers like Gen. (Retd) Wesley Clark put it succinctly: "We got the wrong guy." Saddam Hussein is not Osama bin Laden, and the former Iraqi strongman was no more a threat to the US than he ever had anything to do with Sept 11. Saddam's physical reappearance has prompted a return to the central issues: were there any weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), where is Osama, and how to stop the insurgency? Nobody in the White House or the Pentagon has a clue.

Were Saddam still at large, Washington could continue with the official "line" that all the answers would come together once they had Saddam. Now that they do have him, but not the answers, things are more difficult for US officials -- a problem worsened by the looming US election.

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Soon after Saddam's arrest, the top US military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said that the prisoner "has been cooperative and is talkative". By the time Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got into place later that day, only to find that Saddam had denied US claims of his involvement in WMDs, Al-Qaeda or the insurgency, Rumsfeld said he was "not cooperating". Saddam was inconsiderate enough to be found, then to reject Washington's allegations in a live "unplugged" performance. If he were still on the loose he could at most issue haphazard taped messages which Rumsfeld or Bush could dismiss offhand.

Worse things are in store for US bureaucrats from a captive Saddam. Among the first problems already experienced is how to classify the prisoner. The world expects Saddam to be accorded the rights of a prisoner of war (PoW), so the Pentagon could not ride roughshod over that so easily. Yet it is difficult to justify making a national leader in the present context a PoW, when all he did was defend his country against foreign invaders. So Rumsfeld has hesitated in classifying Saddam as a PoW. Another problem is where to put him; the last reports on his whereabouts only said he was in or near Baghdad Airport, which even if true may only mean that he was in transit. Parts of Iraq are said to be unsafe for such a HVT ("high value target"), and parts of the US might be rendered unsafe were he to be taken there.

The next problem is how to treat Saddam, particularly when he refuses to say what US officials insist that he say. CIA operatives skilled in the art of extracting information from difficult captives are on the job, to get Saddam to spill the truth in private and then perhaps say what they want in public. But once the proverbial ball gets rolling, it may be difficult to stop because it might be downhill all the way. Besides substantiating the absence of WMDs or any influence over the present insurgency, Saddam might also reveal his long-standing antagonism towards Osama.

Further, he might even show how the US had encouraged him to invade Kuwait in mid-1990. Once in his element, Saddam could likewise reveal all the assistance in money and weapons that the US and UK gave him over the years.

All of that would be highly embarrassing to both countries, and potentially damaging when election season is near. Author and filmmaker Michael Moore quoted a 1994 US Senate Report that US operators supplied Saddam with bacillus anthracis (cause of anthrax), clostridium botulinum (source of botulinum toxin) and other bacteria and poisons he could use in WMDs. Then when Saddam reportedly used poison gas on the Kurds in 1988, President Reagan denied it and the CIA apparently covered for him. Now all those details and more could be unearthed together with a haggard Saddam.

There was earlier speculation among US officials on whether Saddam should be allowed to be found alive. The decision was then taken to permit it, in hopes that his capture and humiliation would sap the morale of the insurgents. Now that a live Saddam is poised to be a major liability instead, the alternative would be for US officials to work out a private agreement to avoid any political embarrassment and electoral damage. Since Saddam's first words upon his surrender were that he wanted to "negotiate", US officials already have him at a disadvantage.

Yet even that discovery of Saddam in the dirt hole in Tikrit may not be so simple or straightforward. There are those, including some in Israeli intelligence, who believe that Saddam had already been held as a prisoner for up to three weeks before US forces arrived.

Saddam could have been betrayed by some of his bodyguards, or the secretive family from his tribe who owned the farmhouse atop the hole. The reward money was US$25 million for a country of poor people, and US military sources issued conflicting reports on how exactly Saddam was found. An earlier version said a soldier advancing into the hole wore protective gear as he inched his way inside and downward. Another report at the time, corroborating this, mentioned that gas might have been pumped into the hole to neutralize the HVT within.

Those who believe Saddam was already a prisoner readied for the hand over point to several factors as clues: his disorientation, his facial injuries indicating he had been beaten, his lack of communication equipment, his unwashed state despite the house nearby, his long hair and unkempt beard that would have taken weeks to grow, and a lull in the insurgency in the weeks preceding his capture.

US forces would of course want the credit of discovering Saddam themselves, so nothing about a tip-off might be revealed. And those who betrayed Saddam would also avoid being identified for their own safety, just as the family who quietly revealed the whereabouts of his sons and then secretly collected the reward. There is an even more sinister possibility: suppose that Saddam Hussein had not been imprisoned by Iraqi civilians or his bodyguards, but caught and held by Al-Qaeda in the Tikrit countryside.

Osama's henchmen would have had the ability and resources to overpower Saddam's bodyguards and anyone else who came near. They would also be highly motivated to receive the US$25 million, now that their funding has been held up.

Getting rid of Saddam, a secularist who never appealed to Osama, by handing him to US forces would further divert Washington's attention from Al-Qaeda. That has already happened, as Washington's critics have lately charged. Then for Al-Qaeda to receive US money to continue with their anti-US campaign would be the ultimate in poetic irony that Osama would relish. The documents found on Saddam would be a further diversion, particularly if they had been forged.

But US leaders have other matters to tussle with for the moment. USA's closest ally UK has said no to the death penalty for Saddam, and even former Conservative Party Defence Minister Sir Malcolm Rifkind has argued that the US should now get out of Iraq. Bush nonetheless pursues the death sentence for Saddam, after the former leader is given "a fair trial". Meanwhile, two US courts condemned Bush's treatment of captives from Afghanistan while those opposing the death penalty include Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Should countries like Iran now perhaps place sanctions against the US for human rights violations? Afghanistan and Iraq are supposed to implement democracy, something that Florida has not done lately. Perhaps the foreign experience could teach Bush's party and government to value human rights and democracy more highly.

Sirajul Islam is a social sciences researcher and consultant