Posted on 07/31/2003 9:07:15 PM PDT by Utah Girl
Should we capture Saddam Hussein alive? This question is being tossed around the media these days as if it were some academic exercise. Those who argue most stridently for taking the Frank Buck "bring 'em back alive" approach don't seem to care that we're not talking about a noble beast like a Bengal tiger: We're talking about a murderous dictator, a war criminal who still may dream of a return to power. They also fail to realize that taking Saddam alive is not our principal goal.
The purpose of the invasion of Iraq was to remove Saddam's murderous regime from power, and by removing it end the threat of its weapons of mass destruction. We have liberated Iraq, but it is still not free. Saddam's Baathists remain at large, in considerable numbers. There are terrorists from Syria, Iran, and the Palestinian terrorist groups, as well as mullahs from Saudi Arabia, working very hard to prevent Iraq from becoming stable. And, so long as Saddam is alive, Iraqis will fear his return. Even now that his two sons have been killed, Saddam's presence is only diminished, not ended. In the audiotape released on Tuesday, he was calling again for violence, mourning his "martyred" sons. Saddam's messages won't result in Iraqis rising against the Coalition any more than they brought other Arab nations to rise to his defense in March. But his voice does, still, have the power to intimidate. The only remaining obstacle to free Iraqis believing that the regime is gone for good is the person of Saddam Hussein himself.
To achieve our goal of a free Iraq, Saddam is just as valuable on a mortuary slab as he would be in a jail cell, spouting off to the BBC and the New York Times. Saddam dead can't incite fear or stir unrest. But Saddam humiliated — put before a court of Iraqis who have the power to sentence him to death — would be just as good. What we must not permit is Saddam before any court that either would not proceed quickly or that would not have the power to sentence him to death. A prolonged spectacle could only become an anti-Coalition propaganda exercise for radical Islamists to use to their benefit.
All of that is not to say that we shouldn't take Saddam alive if the chance presents itself, and if to do so won't cost more than the benefits we can gain. If we can, what is it worth to take Saddam alive?
Though it seems that we will find Saddam sooner rather than later — the capture of one of his most senior bodyguards earlier this week bodes well — he has instincts that must be the envy of every cornered rat. His will to survive — and the money to buy cooperation — has kept him free for months, literally since our spec-ops guys began doing their thing around Tikrit and Baghdad even before the March invasion began. By now, he must be enormously tired, and emotionally breached (in spec-ops terms, so messed up in his mind that clear thought is no longer possible). And for the few people who have hidden him out of loyalty or fear, the gamble on Saddam has longer odds each day.
So what do we do when we find him? Last Sunday, I debated former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska on MSNBC. Gravel thinks we messed up by not taking Qusay and Uday alive, and that it would have been a simple matter to do just that. Why not surround the house and give him the Noriega treatment, blasting them with loud, incessant rock music, Gravel argued. Why not lay siege to the house and simply wait them out? Why not send a SWAT team in?
To a small degree, even Mike Gravel is right. Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former Brit ambassador to the U.N. and soon to be their ambassador to Iraq, have all come out in favor of taking Saddam alive. But I part company with both Gravel and Chalabi, because they omitted one crucial thought that Greenstock did not. Greenstock said to the Daily Telegraph: "I would like to see him brought before a court, but that is in the hands of the military team looking for him." Because Saddam is just as valuable dead as alive, we must not spend lives unnecessarily just to take him alive.
Task Force 20, a combined force that has been hunting Saddam for months, may get lucky. If the spec-ops guys can get there fast enough — as they should have when Qusay and Uday were found — they may be able to force entry and take him without much risk. If that option presents itself, the small risk may be worth it. But if the spec-ops guys don't get there fast enough, or if other forces on the scene think it's likely he'll slip away, or if he and his companions decide to fight, then the decision has to be left to the on-scene commander just as Greenstock said. Which means Saddam dies.
When the Romans staged a triumph — a parade in celebration of victory — it often featured the defeated enemies in chains, walking behind the chariot of the victor. The symbolism of Roman strength and the subjugation of its empire was not lost on any who saw it or heard of it. We could have benefited from taking Saddam's sons alive. But they chose not to surrender, and shot it out with our troops, knowing they couldn't win. They made a choice, which their old man may also make. Taking Saddam alive and putting him on trial for all of his war crimes and crimes against humanity would be a great spectacle, and could be both a great gain and a great loss for us.
For each mass grave we put in evidence, for each raped woman and disfigured man, for each of the thousands of Kurds who died in the chemical-weapons attack on Halabjah, there would be hours and days of denials, and calls for us to produce Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. There would be accusations of war crimes by the Coalition, and demands for testimony by Messrs. Bush, Blair, Powell, Straw, and others. Those who dream of a public-relations bonanza in a trial of Saddam may, instead, give one to him and our other enemies in the region.
If Saddam surrenders, or can be taken without great risk, take him alive and try him. If not, Saddam delendus est.
— NRO Contributor Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, and is now an MSNBC military analyst. He is the author of the novel Legacy of Valor.
The question SHOULD be, "Should we capture Saddam Hussein whole?"
Good points. Kill on sight, but leave an easily recognizable corpse.
Do we really need a 20-year-long "War Crimes" trial in Luxembourg or Botswana or wherethehellever, culminating in a decision to exile him rather than execute him, probably with the at least implied if not explicit undertone that our military interrvention was not warrented?
Bring him back dead.
Personally, I think Saddam's head would make a dandy hood ornament for W.'s Presidential limo during his second Inaugural Parade.
But not a pretty corpse.
Why aren't these doubles being sought and reported on?
Why isn't more information forthcoming about the health of Saddam before the war and in the early stages of the war?
(There was a report he'd died years before of cancer and Iraq was "handled" by some other leaders through the Saddam doubles.)
Besides this ominous emotional question of whether or not to shoot him on sight, why aren't more little questions being asked regarding Saddam?
Kill them all. Let God sort them out.
Coming from the west I say drapped across a saddle.
Iraqis need to see him dead on a slab.
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