'Cos he was found in a pit?
Anyway put me down for a “Woot Woot!” or two, regardless of how this affects Bush’s standing. Hopefully this will take some of the momentum from the insurgents and help with the “hearts and minds battle” (Glad to see Saddam looking like he’d been living on a park bench - knocks out any “wily old fox out-witting dumb Americans” myths)
I’ll buy that, but then again, that doesn’t really make me “relieved” that Hussein was captured. Under the circumstances it seems like window dressing. If he was ineffectual and unthreatening to us, then why were we there? And what’s the big deal about rooting out one scared-shitless dickhead in a hole?
Yes, I know, removing the figure head does much for removing the movement (or however one would like to put it).
I can only hope that this can bring about a quick end to hostilities and our troops getting out of harms way.
To tell the truth – I’m not holding my breath.
Is that the whole deck now? Wasn’t he the ace of spades?
Can’t wait for the spin — even if an Iraqi citizen turned Hussein in for the $25,000,000, I’m sure we’ll be treated to a story that’s even more exciting (and untrue) than the yarn created for Jessica Lynch’s capture.
Not just the ace of spades, but Bush’s ace in the hole.
So long as he has access to a satelite cell phone and/or the internet, and/or a radio transceiver, and/or a video camera and/or an audio recorder, and a tame news agency, he is NOT contained in the least and won’t be until he is D & G. And even when Osama is D & G, his organization will still be around and will still be dedicated to the annilhation of the United States. Every nickel we spent, and will continue to spend, in Iraq should have been and should now be spent on combating Al-Queda and other terrorist groups. They are an immediate threat to the USA and Saddam isn’t and never was. That doesn’t mean that I am not glad he has been captured. In my view, he shouldn’t have come out of that cellar alive.
As to precisely how we’re going to fuck this one up, I’m waiting with baited breath to see just what we’re going to DO with him.
Sure, we’re gonna interrogate him. We’re going to make him tell us where the WMDs are, and what he did with them.
And he’ll demand some kind of security for his information.
And then he’ll tell us there weren’t any WMDs.
And then what? Do we hand him over to the legally elected Iraqi government that we helped put together? Hell, no. What if they put Saddam back in charge? What if someone helps him escape? What if someone assassinates him? What if they put him on trial?
No, I think the next issue that’s going to come up here is when all those gleeful Iraqis begin to realize that we aren’t going to trust them with the disposal of their own former dictator… and they get pissed at us for THAT, in addition to everything else…
Is it me or, in that photo with the blue background, does he look not unlike Michael Jackson ?
Okay, it’s me.
They’ve been pussy-footing around this guy for over 11 years, and now we’re supposed to believe that they’ve captured him without firing a single shot? As MrTuffPaws said, I’ll believe they haven’t had him all along if the coalition casualties drop off or cease.
How is it, with all the telegraphing that was done pre-invasion, that Saddam “escaped” with only $750,000?
This is great news for the day. One of the great bastards of our time is contained. Only a depressingly-large number left to go …
The issue now for him is who gets to try him. Either there has to be a US-organized tribunal of some sort that will do nothing to let the Iraqi people feel in control, or there has to be a plausibly-Iraqi government that will last long enough to do it, or Bush will have to touch the third rail of internationalism and send him to the Hague, or he gets his own isolation cell in Gitmo while the decision gets stalled (my prediction). It will become clear, though, to the daydreamers just how much of the insurrection is from Saddam supporters and how much from genuine nationalists - the more that situation can be cleared from misconceptions, the better.
And the award for First Straw Man goes to …
Doubtful. The guy was crouching in a damn hole. If there were really WMD’s in a quantity and condition and state of control such as to be a threat to the US, we’d have known it long ago. This does not make Bush any less of a liar or warmonger.
So we can ignore all that “dead or alive” talk from the Cowboy? This guy’s a conspirator to commit mass murder. We do need to get him. There’s no need to let Bush off the hook for that - why are you doing so?
Cite?
Not that we had any legal right to go after Saddam at all. This arrest is itself a war crime.
By the way, Bush has now lost his scapegoat for the continuing guerilla war in Iraq. He can no longer blame it on “Saddam loyalists” and will have to admit that it is a popular resistance.
Holy shit! Hi, Lib, nice to see you! 
While I’d agree with the sentiment, it would have been a bad idea. Look at the flap when Uday and Qusay were illed-kay. There were a lot of people who were offended by the showing of the bloody bodies, offended by the plastic surgery, and many who simply wouldn’t believe it was them. It was a PR nightmare.
They’ve found Saddam cowering in a little hole, and since they have him alive they can hold him up to his loyalists and say “Here’s your fearless leader, he’s scrawny, filthy and covered with lice, and in the end he went down without a fight.” No rumors of going out in a blaze of glory. And the Iraqis get their own shot at justice instead of the Americans getting rid of him for them. It’s more diplomatic for all involved. I just hope he doesn’t have an “accident” while he’s in custody.
In the same way that every soi disant progressive in the U.S. was shown to be a brutal thug after the collapse of the XSSR?
Pick anything off this page, or the next one. According to Google, you have 10,300 or so to pick from.
So, how long are we guessing he lives? I don’t think that Bush is going to leave Saddam alive in Iraq, in prison or not.
15 minutes til the press conference.
LC
Gotta go with ElvisL1ves on this one (never thought I’d write those words).
Capturing Saddam is unquestionably a Good Thing, but it does not exculpate Dubya from his deception of the American people in starting this war. Dubya lied about the WMDs, yellowcake from Niger, and the Iraqi connection to 9/11, and Saddam’s head on a pike won’t change the past. And let us not forget the hamhanded and petty decision to forbid France, Germany, and Russia to bid on Iraq reconstruction contracts and the shady Bush/Cheney/Halliburton connection.
And just a thought. . . was I the only one hoping that when he was taken by the US troops, Saddam started singing, “I can change, I can cha-annge”?
Jenaroph:
Agreed, 100%. There better not be any Hermann Goering-esque cyanide escape* for this fucker.
Cooking threads go in Cafe Society.
Thenkyewverymush.