Not the start of a bad joke, but rather the possibility that both of their "captures" by American forces had more to the story than it first appeared...

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=743

Would not surprise me in the least if true, and it confirms my suspicion that Saddam is by now a rather little fish in Iraq. The "insurgency" is now self-supporting, requiring no leadership in particular. Certainly no more leadership than the Mujahadeen had vs. the Soviets in the 1980s.

The only feelgood part of this story is that EVERYONE can agree that Saddam deserves whatever he gets. He's a symbol, and an important one at that, but not the key to peace in Iraq.

Originally posted by te jen
Would not surprise me in the least if true, and it confirms my suspicion that Saddam is by now a rather little fish in Iraq. The "insurgency" is now self-supporting, requiring no leadership in particular. Certainly no more leadership than the Mujahadeen had vs. the Soviets in the 1980s.

What gets me is how could Saddam have carried out the coordinating of attacks if he was in a place like that. It makes me wonder that perhaps the insurgency was doing it by itself the majority the time.

Not bloody likely. Unless he had a bunch of runners taking intel in and orders out we would have eavesdropped his communications. I think that the only orders he could have issued would be a general exhortation to continue the fight.

I think that Saddam rapidly became a liability for the Baathists; they are probably just as happy to be rid of him. The only surprise is that he was taken alive. I would have thought that either he'd have killed himself, shot at U.S. troops until they blew him away, or else been killed by one of his own guys.

Now he's a liability for the CPA and the provisional Iraqi council. What are they going to do - try him in open court and let him speak for the record? Try him in secret and incense the remaining faithful? Find him guilty and stick him in a jail where we'll have to guard him forever? Execute him and turn him into a martyr?

I'd like to know what he has to say about WMDs and al Qaeda. Nobody will believe anything he says, of course, but it must keep BushCo awake at night. Maybe they ought to give him to Larry King and be done with it.

The easiest way to deal with him, of course, would be to put him in a helicopter and drop him off in Halabja some dark night. Or maybe hand him over to Iranian intelligence. Perhaps give him to Syrian intelligence and see if they can learn anything from him.

Of course, because of the way he looked when they found him, they could have just dropped him off in the NY subway. He could easily have passed for a homeless person. Which, in a sense, he actually is!

Originally posted by te jen
I think that Saddam rapidly became a liability for the Baathists; they are probably just as happy to be rid of him. The only surprise is that he was taken alive. I would have thought that either he'd have killed himself, shot at U.S. troops until they blew him away, or else been killed by one of his own guys.

I agree with you there. I thought he would have killed himself or fought until he died.

I also read the article you posted. Really interesting. Either he was a captive or perhaps he had no bullets in the guns to kill himself.

Interesting link. I thought something was amiss with Saddam's long hair not being white. Amongst all of the chaos he had time to dye his hair black. Riight. :D

The poor bastard taking the fall because of his enemy - Bin Laden.

Oh well - A terror prone Iraq is just what we need to insure the war on terror is never won. Hooray!

Saddam is irrelevant.

Intelligence info has been reporting for a while that it is likely Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who is #6 on the list, and was the vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, who is coordinating resistance. His daughter was married to one of Saddma's sons. However, I doubt that even he is coordinating all of the resistance. He might be coordinating the main resistance, but I would imagine much of the attacks are isolated attacks by local groups isolated in various towns, and foreign fighters acting on their own. Al-Douri would likely be coordinating former Baathists and fedayeen.

The captive story sounds pretty reasonable, but if Saddam's captives had him in a hole for so many months why wouldn't they hand him over to the US for their cash reward? I would think Iraqis care a whole lot about money nowadays when they're so dirt poor.
Saddam is irrelevant
Not entirely. Atleast he was claimed by the US to be one of the top reason to go to war w/ Iraq. It's a lie, but he still matters. Matters enough that this is considered a 'victory"