The capture of Saddam: Huge political boost for Bush

By RUPERT CORNWELL in Washington

President George W. Bush yesterday hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein as a crucial step on the path towards to a free and democratic Iraq.

But he warned that the success itself would not signify an end to the violence in the country.

In a short address from the White House, a measured, almost sombre Bush promised Iraqis that having been taken alive, Saddam would now "face the justice he had denied to millions".

His capture was further assurance that "the torture chambers and the secret police had gone for ever". But, the President warned, the United States would still face "terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East".

If it was good news for the vast majority of Iraqis who loathed their former leader, it was possibly even better news for the White House.

Iraq has emerged as the issue on which Bush could be most vulnerable in his re-election campaign, as public opinion increasingly questioned the rationale for the March invasion.

But Bush's supporters, the Democrats jockeying to challenge him next year and independent analysts all agree that this symbolic closing of a chapter in Iraqi and Middle Eastern history is far more than a big short-term domestic political boost for the President.

Saddam's seizure will not end the resistance - indeed, some fear a temporary increase in the insurgency. But, runs the unanimous view in Washington, it provides an unmatched opportunity to mend diplomatic fences, bring in new countries to help with peacekeeping and speed reconstruction efforts.

The success will enable the President to claim that despite at least 195 combat deaths of US servicemen in Iraq since the war proper ended, US intelligence is getting on top of the guerrillas.

Just conceivably, Saddam will provide information leading investigators to his alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Attention has been deflected from embarrassments such as the alleged overcharging on Iraq contracts by Halliburton, the oil services company formerly run by the Vice-President, Dick Cheney.

Administration officials also believe prospects have improved for the mission of former Secretary of State James Baker to Europe, which starts today.

Ostensibly aimed at persuading France, Germany and Russia to forgive Iraqi debt, the trip has turned into a diplomatic exercise to heal the new row provoked by the exclusion of companies from bidding for US$18.6 billion ($28.8 billion) of reconstruction contracts.

"[Secretary of State] Colin Powell is an internationalist, but it's never certain that he has the full backing of a divided Administration," said Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"But Baker is Mr Bush's man, and his views are like those of Powell. This is a great opportunity."

There were words of caution. Kenneth Pollack, former CIA analyst and the top Brookings Institution specialist on Iraq, warned Saddam's capture on its own would not determine the success or failure of construction.

"It's not clear that the insurgency will be crippled. The basic problems in Iraq, the slow rebuilding, the gasoline lines, are unrelated to Saddam."


- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq