World hails capture of Saddam Hussein by UN, Reuters, The Age 10:51am 16th Dec, 2003   United Nations News Service: Annan hails capture of Saddam Hussein    15 December – Hailing the capture of Saddam Hussein as a "positive development," United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for international norms of justice to prevail in trials against Iraqi criminals.    “Saddam Hussein has cast a rather long shadow over developments and over the transition process,” Mr. Annan noted in comments to the press just prior to his meeting with Jeremy Greenstock, the United Kingdom’s senior envoy for Iraq, at UN Headquarters in New York. “With his capture, that shadow has been removed, and I hope this will help us move ahead with the transition period and also accelerate the process of reconciliation and attempts to establish a provisional Iraqi government that is inclusive and transparent.”    Noting that the former Iraqi leader has been accused of "heinous crimes including gross and systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law," Mr. Annan emphasized that "all those responsible for these crimes should be brought to account."    "I believe this should be done through open trials in properly established courts of law which will respect basic international norms and standards, including respect for international humanitarian law," he said.    Responding to press questions, he repeated that whatever court is set up must meet basic international standards. "If in doing that one needs to get help from our side I think we should be considered," he said, adding, "I've been encouraged by assurance given by the [United States] President and other senior members of the Administration that Saddam Hussein would be treated humanely, even though this is the treatment he in the past did not accord those who fell into his hands."    To a question on whether the capture would bring the UN back to Iraq, the Secretary-General replied, "the only thing that will hasten the UN's return is the establishment of a secure environment, and if the capture of Saddam Hussein leads to that development it will be helpful."    December 16, 2003. "A cauldron of citizens' emotions" (Published by the Age).    Saddam's plight has released a torrent of conflicting emotions among Arabs, writes Ed O'Loughlin in Jerusalem.    News of Saddam Hussein's capture was greeted by a chorus of cautious welcome from governments across the Middle East - but behind the official utterances many governments have decidedly more mixed feelings.    Having hitched their wagon to Saddam's horse unwisely in the past, when they backed Iraq in the first Gulf War, Palestinian leaders for the most part remained quiet on the occasion of his final downfall. There was nothing from Yasser Arafat.    But a leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas reflected the widespread dismay on the Arab street when he said that Saddam's capture was a "mistake" for which the US would pay dearly. "What the United States did is ugly and despicable," Abdel Aziz Rantizi said in the Gaza Strip.    The fullest praise came from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who immediately telephoned US President George Bush to congratulate Israel's chief backer on "a great day for the democratic world".    In the near term, though, Saddam's failure to go down with all guns blazing will do more to tarnish his legend among Palestinians and other Sunni Arab Muslims than any stories of mass graves and poison gas in Kurdistan.    It certainly played that way in Baghdad. As the initial shock of Saddam Hussein's capture wore off and Iraqis caught their first televised glimpse of the man many secretly had imagined to be defiantly waging a resistance campaign from some palatial underground command centre, the sight of the scraggly, broken captive hit them like a slap.    Saddam's capture in a grubby hole in the ground accompanied only by two inconsequential guards stunned a nation long indoctrinated to believe their leader was American imperialism's worst nightmare.    Some simply vented their anger and disgust with Saddam. "The American soldiers dragged him from beneath a pile of vegetables. He didn't even resist," said a disgusted Ali bin Hussein.    As 37-year-old Ali Farhad, a leather factory owner, watched the videotape of an unwashed and co-operative Saddam that was shown repeatedly on coalition-run TV, he wore a look of revulsion. "He never shot a single bullet," Farhad said in disbelief. "He always cast himself as the big enemy of Americans. But the truth is, he is a coward."    The glee of Muhamad Mohammed, 40, likewise was tainted by the image of the humiliated Saddam. "When I saw and heard about the way he was captured, I was ashamed," Mohammed said. "He should have fought to the death or committed suicide."    Abu Faleh, a 60-year-old security guard suffered no such ambivalence. "I am an old man now. My youth was confiscated by Saddam. But I can rejoice for my sons that he has been arrested. Now their futures will be better than mine."    In the wider Arab world, distaste for Saddam has long been mixed with respect for his stand against the US and Israel, which was strengthened by his success in evading his enemies for eight months on the run. That disjunction could be heard in the gap between what governments said as compared to their citizens.    In Egypt, Amr Moussa, the Egyptian who is secretary-general of the Arab League, showed official restraint. The capture of Saddam was important, he was quoted as saying, and Iraqis should decide his fate. But he said nothing of Saddam's deeds.    As night fell over Cairo, engineer Ihad Sobhi lounged in a cafe. Around him, men argued about whether the Americans had indeed nabbed Saddam, or whether it was a lookalike. "I don't want to admit that I'm happy," Sobhi, 27, said softly. "But I am."    The response of Jordan's government was muted. Spokesman Asma Khader said: "What the Jordanian Government cares about is the safety and security of the Iraqi people and the restoration of political stability in that brotherly Arab nation," he said.    On the street, Suleiman Olum, a vendor in the teeming Sakaf Al-Sale old market area in downtown Amman, said: "I thought he (Saddam) was a 'wali,' a fighter with godlike powers of the legends. But he is not one at all."    Iran, which lost hundreds of thousands of lives to Saddam's aggression in the 1980-88 war, was predictably pleased. Vice-President Mohammed Ali Abtahi said: "Saddam should be prosecuted because of the crimes he has committed against the Iraqi and Iranian people".    In Kuwait, which Saddam invaded and tried to annex in his first disastrous Gulf War, people danced unabashed in the streets. The Kuwaitis displayed no mixed feelings about a fallen Arab leader. They honked car horns and traded congratulatory mobile phone messages. "Everybody is passing congratulations to each other," Kuwaiti analyst Abdallah Sahar said. "It's really our day. It's justice day."    Saddam's captors will now have to be very careful how they handle his detention and trial if they are not to inflame further the deeply entrenched belief that the Islamic heartland is the victim of another round of colonialism, this time led by America and Israel.    - with agencies    15 December, 2003    "Dean: Iraq Views Unchanged by Saddam's Capture" by Patricia Wilson ( Published by Reuters).    LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, whose campaign successes have been fueled by anti-war sentiment, said on Monday Saddam Hussein's capture had neither changed his views on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq nor made America safer.    The former Vermont governor, who is vying with eight other Democrats for the right to challenge President Bush in 2004, praised the arrest of the "frightful" former Iraqi leader, saying it offered the United States, Iraq and the international community "an opportunity to move ahead."    "But it is only an opportunity, not a guarantee," Dean told the Pacific Council. "Let me be clear: My position on the war has not changed."    He outlined what he called the "Dean doctrine," a "very clear prescription" for when the United States should use force unilaterally: to defend the country, to stop an imminent threat and, in some instances, when world bodies failed to resolve problems like ethnic cleansing.    "The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope will help keep our soldiers safer," he said. "But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer."    .. All the Democratic presidential hopefuls have used the chaotic situation in Iraq, where nearly 200 U.S. soldiers have died in guerrilla attacks since Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1, to lash the president for failing to gain enough international cooperation for the war and not planning adequately for its messy aftermath.    Bush has acknowledged that Saddam's capture would not end the guerrilla attacks. Neither would it move the United States toward "defeating enemies who pose an even greater danger" like the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Dean said.    Dean proposed a $60 billion, 10-year global fund to keep weapons of mass destruction out of terrorist hands. His plan would build on an existing U.S. program to deactivate and destroy such arms called the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Dean's major rivals also support expanding Nunn-Lugar, created in 1991 to work with Russia and former Soviet states to reduce the threat posed by the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal. The program has deactivated about 6,000 nuclear warheads.    © Reuters 2003. All Rights Reserved.    December 16, 2003    "The capture of Saddam Hussein is welcome news to most Iraqis" by Amin Saikal. (Published by the Age)    At trial, the tyrant could reveal embarrassing secrets about his past warm dealings with the US, writes Amin Saikal.    The capture of Saddam Hussein is welcome news to most Iraqis, a serious blow to his loyalists and a clear warning to many dictators in the region. It is, however, unlikely to end the Iraqi resistance, lead to a relatively smooth transformation of Iraq into a democratic state - or reduce international terrorism.    If Saddam is put on public trial, it could bring out more about America's past dealings with him than has been revealed so far and this, in turn, could complicate further the US position in Iraq and the region.    The fact is that Saddam, while a motivating element for many of his Baathist loyalists, has not been the central player in the Iraqi resistance. This much is even acknowledged by US commanders on the ground, and explains why the political leaders of the coalition of the willing have not been as jubilant over Saddam's capture as they were over the killing of the dictator's two sons in July.    The Iraqi insurgence has been driven by several groups, ranging from the militant Islamic Ansar al-Islam and its jihadi backers from outside Iraq, including al-Qaeda, to radical Sunni Arab nationalists and the increasingly disgruntled Shiite saboteurs.    The more the resistance has been effective, the more the US forces have been compelled to go on the offensive, causing greater humiliation, casualties and property destruction for Iraqis and so prompting them to sympathise with the insurgents.    The families, clans and tribes of the thousands of Iraqis who have been killed since the start of the war have neither forgotten their dead, nor found the occupation a source of tangible enrichment. Expect the Iraqi resistance to continue in one way or another, albeit without the participation of Saddam and some of his loyalists, for the foreseeable future.    There is sufficient anti-American anger among segments of the Iraqi people, as well as in the Arab and Muslim worlds, to allow the Islamic jihadis and radical Arab nationalists to draw support from inside and outside Iraq to continue the fight. This, together with the demographic and social-political complexities of Iraq, may mean stability and democracy will continue to elude the country for a long time.    Of course, the hope of many Iraqis now would be to see a public trial of Saddam in Iraq, and this also makes sense from the perspective of the US and its allies. But there would be a catch in all this: it could provide Saddam with a unique opportunity to disclose to the world the extent of his past dealings with Americans.    The US warmly courted Saddam in the 1980s as a potential ally and an Arab bulwark against the anti-American Iranian Islamic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini. Americans who, at the time, pushed for close links with Saddam's regime include Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.    In the Reagan administration, Cheney was Pentagon secretary and Rumsfeld a senior adviser to the Pentagon. It was Rumsfeld who met Saddam in 1983 to deliver a message of goodwill from President Reagan.    The 1980s was the golden age in the Iraqi dictator's relations with Washington. He received much US technological and military assistance. The Reagan administration also actively helped him develop chemical and biological weapons, as indicated last year by Edward Pick, the US ambassador to Iraq at the time.    When Saddam used chemical weapons against the Iraqi Kurdish population in 1988, as well as in the Iraq-Iran war against the Iranian forces during the same period, Reagan and his vice-president, George Bush snr, maintained a conspicuous silence.    In a public trial, Saddam will be able to provide a lot more details on all this that could backfire on the administration of George Bush jnr...    (Professor Amin Saikal is director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra).
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