Saddam Hussein - The king dethroned

13th December was the day that opened a new chapter not only in the Iraq’s but also the world’s political history. On 13th December 2003 a force of 600 American soldiers captured Saddam Hussein in a raid on an isolated farm near Tikrit. The former Iraqi president was found, haggard and disoriented but alive, hiding at the bottom of an 8-foot-deep hole. Although he was armed with weapons, but he offered no resistance and not one shot was fired at the time of capture. People present described him as a talkative man who seemed alternately resigned to his fate and belligerently defensive about his 35 years in power.

There are many who think that capture was the only heartening way to end a bloody year. But if the tyrant’s capture is a cause for celebration, it should also prompt a moment’s sober reflection. If Saddam had power, who gave him the power to influence the life of millions? Saddam could not have become what he became without the aid of others. It was the Soviet Union that armed him to the hilt. The coup that brought the Baathists to power in 1963 may have had some help from the CIA.

When he invaded Iran, starting a war that lasted for most of the 1980s, many outsiders found it convenient to use him. The West came to see him as bulwark against the threat Ayatollah Khomeini posed to the Arab states and their oil. The French sold him aircraft and missiles, and the Americans fed him battlefield intelligence. Arabs, who now Castigate the West for having aided the man, bankrolled his war against Iran.

In 1988, when the American State Department called his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds "abhorrent and unjustifiable", the Arab League leapt to defend him. Before he invaded Kuwait in 1990, millions of Arabs were thrilled by his promise to destroy "half of Israel" with chemical fire. Some Arabs, including Yasar Arafat, continued to applaud even after he grabbed Kuwait. In 1991, Palestinians climbed on to their rooftops to cheer the Scud missiles falling on Tel Aviv. It seems now, that most countries contributed to Saddam’s resign of terror.

Team Bush, comprising Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. led to Saddam’s fall. But their record is mixed. In 1990, the first President Bush handled Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait with exemplary skill. He spent five months assembling a grand alliance, and then commanded a swift war with the authority of a United Security Council. Many criticize him for not going on to Baghdad to finish Saddam off, but this is the wisdom of hindsight. At the time, Mr. Bush decided not to exceed his UN mandate which was only to rescue Kuwait. He reckoned there was a good chance that a humbled Saddam would fall anyway. Sending an American army to conquer a great Arab capital did not look like a splendid idea. But that honest mistake was tainted by what happened next. Mr. Bush called on the Iraqis to rise up, only to turn away those who did were slaughtered in a bloodbath America could have halted.

And this was not the only time mistake were made in dealing with Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself with Bush Jr. He too conducted a swift war, but his pre-war diplomacy was less deft than his father’s and his planning for the post-war occupation rudimentary. America went to war on what appears to have been weak or false intelligence. The Bush tea made exaggerated claims about Saddam’s forbidden weapons.

Matters were made worse by Bush’s policy to portray Iraq as part parcel of the war against Al-Qaeda. It is wrong to lump all America’s enemies together as "terrorists", to play with words and, worse, to risk making a muddle of policy.

People know that Osama bin Laden is a religious fanatic with an apocalyptic vision of permanent Islamic war against the infidel. Saddam is a secular Arab nationalist who had a rational if reckless dream of acquiring super-weapons and dominating the world’s oil reserves. Saddam had to be stooped, but his defeat has not necessarily hastened the defeat of Al-Queda, and might even make victory harder if it continue to stake up Muslim rage against the West.

In the coming days what becomes the fate of Saddam Hussein, the morality of whether he is a case for death penalty, or otherwise, and stand the 'protectors' of democracy, freedom and justice adopt will be issues of great interest and significance.