Christopher Scheer is a staff writer for AlterNet and co-author of "The Five
Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq."

Hussein's Capture Is Yesterday's News

Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
December 14, 2003

It is terrific news that Saddam Hussein, that human monster, is now under
arrest and will be brought before a court. There seems little doubt that he
meets the criteria for an international war criminal, and while I'd think it
much wiser to send him to The Hague, it's difficult to argue that he
deserves more than whatever made-to-order court the U.S. decides is
appropriate for its old super-creepy ally.

As President Bush said in his brief speech Sunday, "For the vast majority of
Iraqi citizens who wish to live as free men and women, this event brings
further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone
forever." I heartily hope this is true.

That said, it's time to return to Earth and reality. The TV talking heads
tell us that the 2004 elections and the future of Iraq were decided this
morning when Hussein was found in a hole. In my humble opinion, that's
perhaps the stupidest comment since Paris Hilton speculated that
Wal-Mart is a store that sells walls. Catching Saddam was a mop-up
operation, rather like the slaying of his sons a few months back. The guy
was already done-for; once a dictator falls from his perch, the wolves --
his own or others -- ensure that he will never again be alpha male in that
pack. All the issues surrounding the occupation of Iraq will be with us
tomorrow morning, and the day after that, and the day after that.

As far as I can tell, catching Saddam is not going to fix Iraq's economy,
build a functioning democracy, prevent a Sunni-Shiite civil war, or bring
back the Americans and Iraqis who have died and will continue to die at the
checkpoints, home invasions and while driving their Humvees down the
nation's roads. Humiliating Hussein with public dental examinations will
hopefully reassure some Iraqis that peace is on the way, but while it would
be nice if his old cronies who may be involved in the insurgency would lay
down their arms, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Kenneth Pollack, the scholar who wrote, "The Threatening Storm: The Case For
Invading Iraq," said on CNN Sunday that after a stay in Iraq, his impression
was that the number one fear of the populace is not guerrilla violence but
street crime. The so-called Iraqi Governing Council is now a joke, with a
BBC/Oxford poll showing the public has nearly zero faith in its
effectiveness. Unemployment is over 50 percent. Nearly half of the first
class of the new Iraqi army quit just days ahead of being deployed. Billions
of dollars of American taxpayer money is being funneled almost directly to a
tiny handful of military contractors and construction companies like Bechtel
and Halliburton.

The American military is the only power broker in the country, something
which has not changed since the first days of the occupation. In six months,
the U.S. has pledged to hand over control of the country straight to Iraqis
elected by caucuses, without bringing in the UN or other international
bodies to help oversee the transition. The U.S. will then be in a position
of either having to let the new Iraqi government make its own mistakes, or
treating it like a puppet regime.
Faced with a cleric-dominated and independent government that may demand the
United States withdraw more quickly or tries to prevent privatization of
Iraq's resources, which do you think the micromanagers at the White House
will choose?

Nor can the capture of Saddam heal the rifts in our own country, where the
lies of this administration have so polarized the populace that the coming
election year promises to be extremely nasty. The President repeated Sunday
that the occupation of Iraq and the overthrow of Hussein is part of the "War
On Terror," despite having finally admitted only weeks ago that there was no
evidence linking him with Al Qaeda.

We Americans are now in one of three miserable positions: We can deny that
the Administration lied and continues to lie about Hussein's ties to terror
and the threat he allegedly posed to the United States; we can get angry
about the lies and afraid of how truth has become a casualty of 9/11; or we
can be aware of the lies, but cling to a faith that good things will come
from them, that the ends justify the means.

We are, none of us, in a very good place. We are encouraged to believe in an
Alice-in-Wonderland world in which Saddam Hussein is a workable stand-in
for Osama bin Ladin; that it is worth sacrificing thousands of American
lives to grant human rights to Iraqis but not to Congolese, Burmese,
Liberians, Uzbekistanis, Syrians, Colombians, North Koreans and other
societies that lack precious natural resources; and that progressives
actually oppose human rights and base their political positions on an
irrational hatred of alleged patriots like George W. Bush.

If the Iraqi people emerge from this latest stage in their hard history with
a better situation it will be a true wonder. I sincerely hope my pessimism
is unfounded. Yet it is hard to forget how completely the current U.S.
government's generous promises echo those made by the British Empire about
its occupation of Baghdad a century ago, or those implied by the assistance,
guns and biological weapons we gave the Hussein regime throughout the 1980s.

So put the monster back in a new hole, but remember: Hussein is not Hitler
and these final stages of his political demise solve very little in a deeply
troubled world.