Why did the capture of Saddam accomplish so little?

Saddam Hussein after his capture last year. File picture / Reuters

BAGHDAD - A year ago a bedraggled Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole in the ground to a chorus of self-congratulatory remarks from United States officials claiming that his capture marked a turning point in the war in Iraq.

"In the history of Iraq a dark and painful era is over," declared President George W. Bush. "All Iraqis can now come together and build a new Iraq."

The self-deceiving optimism of US military commanders was extraordinary.

Major General Ray Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division was credited with arresting Saddam, declared a month later that the insurgency was "on its knees" and only "a sporadic threat."

Odierno went on to assure the press corps in Washington that "I believe that in six months you are going to see some normalcy". Other US generals echoed his words.

A year later American casualties showed how little the war was affected by the imprisonment of Saddam. Of the 1283 US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, no fewer than 821 have died since his capture.

Six months after Odierno spoke, the US only fully controlled islands of territory. All the main roads out of Baghdad were unsafe. The resistance felt strong enough to openly establish its checkpoints around the capital.

Why did Saddam's capture accomplish so little compared to the expectations of the White House and US military? They appear to have believed much of their own propaganda about the resistance being orchestrated by remnants of Saddam's regime - Donald Rumsfeld's notorious "dead-enders."

But it was never likely that Iraqis who notably failed to fight for Saddam when he was in power were doing so after he was overthrown.

During the invasion Iraq's roads were choked with abandoned tanks and armoured vehicles. Most of the Iraqi army simply went home.

Saddam was a highly convenient enemy for Washington. He was demonic enough to be easily demonised. He was also militarily incompetent, putting his faith in elderly tanks and hundreds of thousands of conscripts who deserted at the first opportunity.

The very fact that his hiding place was betrayed and he was captured alone shows that he had no secret infrastructure in place to allow him to lead a guerrilla war after he fled Baghdad. His sons Uday and Qusay were also betrayed.

At the heart of the US miscalculation about the impact of the capture was a refusal to realise that the reason for the rising strength of the Iraqi resistance was very simple. Outside Kurdistan the great majority of Iraqis, whatever they thought of Saddam, were against the US occupation.

This is true of the Shiite Muslims, the majority of Iraqis, as well as the Sunni Arabs who have risen in rebellion.

The issuing of the famous pack of cards showing the faces of senior members of the former regime - Saddam was, of course, the Ace of Spades - is now something of an embarrassment. Most have been caught or given themselves up but it has had no effect on the uprising.

Saddam's trial could have been portrayed as evidence of the Administration's victory in Iraq. But his court appearance largely backfired.

US officials tried and failed to turn off the sound equipment of television crews in the court room. As a result, instead of a beaten and bewildered Saddam Hussein, Iraqis saw a pugnacious figure portraying his judges as US dupes.

At the same time the Iraqis in charge of the trial - notably Salem Chalabi, nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, once favoured by the Pentagon and the neo-conservatives - had themselves been purged. It is now men loyal to Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister, who will be in charge of the proceedings.

The trial, if it does take place, will be more interesting than it might have been six months ago. Saddam could be charged with destroying large parts of the Shiite cities of Najaf when he crushed the Shiite uprisings of 1991.

But US guns and planes destroyed more of Najaf than the old Iraqi army had ever done. He turned hundreds of thousands of Kurds into refugees by destroying their villages, but the US has just done the same to 300,000 people in Fallujah.

- INDEPENDENT