Letters to the editor

	Saddam Hussein
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SMOKED FROM HIS HOLE

The rest of humanity can now rejoice: 'Butcher' is on the block

Editor, The Times:

Baathists, jihadists and leftists worldwide are mourning George Bush's capture of the "Butcher of Baghdad." The rest of humanity can rejoice that this blight on humankind will at last see justice and never again torment Iraq (" 'We got him,' " Times page one, Dec. 15).

Once again, events prove that our president is on the right side of history. Would this day have come if President Bush were not in office? Please keep printing vitriolic anti-Bush and anti-American letters. The left is only digging a deeper hole of defeat for itself.
John Nelson, Mercer Island

Calibrate the scales

The world should be thoroughly relieved over the capture of Saddam Hussein. Surely this will help close a dark chapter in Iraq's history. I hope that the next step will be to give him a fair and open trial, in order to properly bring to light his atrocities.

At his trial, I believe four things will become readily apparent:

1) Saddam killed thousands of his own people (especially Kurds), making him one of the more despotic leaders in the world;

2) He was able to do this only with $1.5 billion of U.S. support, including the very helicopters he used to gas Kurdish villages;

3) Saddam took advantage of anti-U.S. sentiment, especially over U.S. economic sanctions, to expand his power and garner support; but,

4) There is no connection between his secular, nationalist dictatorship and the fundamentalist al-Qaida.

Giving Saddam a fair and open trial (as opposed to a secret trial before a military tribunal) will not be a security risk, but only a security aid; it will prevent Saddam from becoming a martyr. Unfortunately, it may also mean fessing up to some of our mistakes.
Jon Frost, Seattle

A pound of flesh

We have captured Saddam. The celebrating in the streets of Baghdad will be brief. Without the anxiety and threat of a Saddam return to power, Iraqis will become increasingly resentful of the U.S. presence in their country. They will continue to face hardships, and they are not stupid. Most understand that the U.S. is there to advance its own agenda. And human beings tend to blame others for their unhappiness.

With the threat of Saddam gone, the divisions and friction between Sunnis and Shiites will flare, resulting in new waves of instability and violence. Mistrust of America's role in establishing a government with increase. Throughout the country, we will begin to see larger and larger demonstrations against America's military presence.

It is extremely difficult for this administration to understand that people do not like to see an occupying army driving Humvees through their streets, breaking down doors, shooting women and children. We will learn quickly what a liability a captured Saddam can be.
Trip Quillman, Everett

Bone of contention

There's an unpleasant subplot to this marvelous capture of Saddam. Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has bet his campaign on the news continuing to be bad in the aftermath to the Iraqi war. In contrast, presidential non-candidate Hillary Clinton has been talking about as tough about the war as a liberal can get away with.

With Saddam captured, the chance that bad will dominate good in Iraqi news well into next fall's election is far less likely. Angry Dean's candidacy is in trouble. Hillary may or may not become a candidate in 2004, but she is well-positioned for 2008.

I doubt either cares a whit for the long-suffering Iraqi people, and this event says nothing about the ability of either to lead. But Hillary has played and won this war lottery, while Dean has played and lost badly.

And those who deserve praise are the U.S. soldiers and Iraqi informants who made the capture possible, not those who've been playing politics with the war.
Mike Perry, Seattle

U.S. defrayed cut

Great. Saddam has been caught, but the real bad guys are still out there. I am talking about those people who gave Saddam power, money and weapons. It is not just one person, of course; the government agencies, corporations, politicians who created this Saddam monster are the ones to blame.

This whole episode, over the past 15 years or so, has cost the American taxpayer over a trillion dollars. What has been gained except destruction? Has anybody gone to jail for handing WMDs over to this guy?

Those who got us into the Iraq episode are still at it: creating new Saddams or worse. We need an investigation into who sold this madman weapons, gave him loans and helped him in any way. How many Saddams are now being given gas, germs, weapons and funding? How could anyone give such a psychopath a means and way to cause such harm?
Mark Lemmon, Ocean Shores

Serves two

In Hollywood, the formulaic script for the standard action movie casts the hero as a renegade, one who "cowboys up," loads the weapons and rampages toward his personal objective (usually revenge, at the heart of it all) without regard for safety, authority, law, consensus, cooperation, or accountability. In the end, he gets the "bad guy," whose evil is beyond dispute, and every crime committed by the hero along the way is dismissed: the victims and their pain vanish; the damage magically disappears.

Fantasy movie endings make us feel good.

America faces a true and significant test now that George Bush has bagged the Butcher. Will we fall for the feel-good Hollywood ending? Or will we remember and care about the lies and crimes committed along the way? (If we can find one man in a little hole in the ground near Tikrit, why can't we find the weapons of mass destruction Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld unequivocally stated were in the same general area?)

If we, the people, accede, allowing illegal and immoral (un-American!) means to be justified by the achieved end, we tell Bush that we will not hold him accountable to standards and laws that, when applied, make this country great. If we allow Bush to continue breaking American ethical and legal codes to (paradoxically) extend his American crusade, we will further empower him as a greater and more imminent threat to our well-being than Saddam ever was.

What'll it be, America? Shall we forfeit our standards for a feel-good ending, or shall we demand that both Saddam and Bush answer for their actions?
Ed Leach, Issaquah

The next course

It's great for the Iraqi people that Saddam was caught alive. Now, through American guidance, he and his cohorts can be tried in a court of law, and the Arab peoples can see that justice can be more fulfilling than revenge.

However, Saddam hasn't been a danger to the U.S. for some time now (via WMDs), though his supporters have been among those attacking our soldiers.

I wonder though, now that he is caught, if the rest of the people in Iraq will want to know why we are still there. I also wonder whether, if George Bush had spent as much time, money and effort chasing Osama bin Laden (the one responsible for 9-11), that man would also be in a cell under U.S. control.
Marilyn Schulz, Redmond

Texas prime

Now that George Bush has caught the elusive dictator, a fitting fate for Saddam would be a life sentence of clearing brush off George's Crawford, Texas, ranch, while subsisting on a strict diet of water, broccoli and pork rinds. I can't think of a worse punishment.
Dave Richards, Bainbridge Island

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