Seizing Saddam...and Kin
By Marni Soupcoff
A curious thing has been happening amidst critics’ complaints that the United States is not focusing sufficiently on an exit strategy in Iraq, and that the Iraqis themselves can’t deal with the terrorists attacking them: the bad guys are getting caught. One of the most notable recent achievements was the capture of Saddam Hussein’s half-brother and former adviser Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti.
With details about Ibrahim’s apprehension still scarce as I write on Sunday, it is difficult to know exactly who should get the credit for nabbing the former Baath Party official who came in at number 36 on the American military’s 55 “most wanted in Iraq” list.
On the other hand, the specifics hardly matter. Regardless of whether it was the U.S. military or the Iraqi interim government or Iraqi police forces (or some combination of the above) who did it, removing Ibrahim from the scene marks an incredible degree of progress.
One of the few people on the most wanted list who was still at large, it is widely believed that Ibrahim had been hunkered down in Syria where he was orchestrating many of the terrorist attacks against Americans in Iraq.
By taking Ibrahim into custody, the interim Iraqi government and the U.S. military have set up a sort of dark Brady Bunch scenario, since two of Irbahim’s brothers (Watban and Barzan) are already being held by the U.S. military, and of course half-brother Saddam is still unhappily hanging out at a U.S base since being memorably caught in his spider hole in late 2003.
Although no cheerful second marriages or sitcoms seem likely to spring out of the Hussein Bunch’s predicament, the fact that getting caught by the Americans has become a family affair shows that progress really is being made in sweeping up the criminal leftovers of Hussein’s regime.
We all know this at some level because, since the start of the Iraq War, the capture of any Iraqi
criminal has made news (albeit sometimes quiet news); but that does not mean the over all success has registered.
Not surprisingly, stories of brutal terror attacks, against Americans and Iraqis alike, are more likely to sear themselves in our minds — particularly given the presence of that small, but inescapably vocal, anti-war crowd that seems to delight in each death as an I-told-you-so vindication of its own prescience or wisdom.
Although some are now begrudgingly willing to admit that maybe, given Iraqis’ profoundly inspiring willingness to get out and vote in January despite threats to their life, Iraq can handle democracy after all, far fewer are stepping up to say that the coalition effort to grab Hussein-era criminals has worked out.
The truth is, bagging bad guys in Iraq has been a stunning success.
Of the 55 people on the aforementioned American most wanted list, only about 10 are still walking free.
The vast majority of the listed culprits, then, have either been caught or have preemptively turned themselves in and are, in any case, no longer able to perpetrate the sort of brutal acts that earned them notoriety. There is, apparently, also reason to hope for further criminals and terrorists in hiding to be turned in now that Iraqis have been emboldened by the success they were able to achieve standing up to murderous thugs during the election.
The mission of bringing freedom to Iraq obviously has yet to be fully accomplished.
But that is a message we receive every single day, almost everywhere we turn, so it does not particularly bear repeating.
Much less emphasized are the small but significant victories, like the capture of Ibrahim, which set the stage for those who have done wrong by so many to be brought, at last, to the justice they successfully eluded for so many years. These successes deserve our focus, if only to keep the situation in Iraq in proper perspective.
Perhaps things will get even better in Iraq — though I have had my serious doubts over the past months like many others, I could not have been happier to have my expectations exceeded by the elections, and now feel decidedly optimistic. Perhaps things will get worse — one need only flip to a random commentary about Iraq in most mainstream newspapers to find an elaboration of this view.
Regardless, we should not lose sight of where we are: Violent tyrant Saddam Hussein and much of his former administration, including a number of his relatives, are now either dead or in custody. No matter what else happens, that is a worthy and immutable victory that should not be underestimated.
