Iraq after Saddam: the ousted dictator's capture is good news, but whether it leads to fewer attacks on U.S. forces is far from clear.

• Author: Gordon, Michael R.
• Position: News Analysis

With the apprehension of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on December 14 in a hole in the ground in Ad Dwar, near his hometown of Tikrit, the U.S.-led coalition scored its biggest victory since the fall of Saddam's government in April.

Capturing Saddam had different meanings for those involved in the Iraq conflict. For the U.S. military, it was a necessary step toward defeating the armed opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, depriving insurgents of a rallying symbol.

For thousands of Iraqis, the images of a bearded and dazed Saddam in the hands of U.S. forces was visual proof that the dictator was never going to claw his way back to power and terrorize the Iraqi population anew.

For President Bush and his administration, the capture was a major victory, and also the profoundly satisfying final act in a personal drama involving both him and his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

(During the Persian Gulf war in 1991, undertaken to expel Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait, the first President Bush decided not to send troops to topple Saddam, believing he would fall in an internal coup or revolution. But Saddam survived, and in 1993 he engineered a failed attempt to assassinate the first President Bush.)

Among Iraqis, the imprisonment of Saddam will almost certainly help improve the U.S. military's reputation, tarnished by the persistent guerrilla attacks. That is important because to win Iraqis' hearts and minds, the United States must persuade the Iraqi people that its military is a winner and capable of establishing the security of Iraq.

FOREIGN TERRORISTS REMAIN

But apprehending Saddam is probably not enough to put a quick end to the insurgency. First, there is little reason to think that Saddam was orchestrating attacks on U.S. troops from his rodent-infested hideout. Many of the day-to-day leaders of the insurgency are probably still at large.

Second, several thousand rebels--members of Saddam's Baath party and possibly former Iraqi army officers and soldiers--lost their privileged positions in Iraqi society with Saddam's removal, and have everything to gain by driving out the Americans.

Third, foreign terrorists have come to Iraq to take on the Americans. For terrorists, it is no longer necessary to sneak into the United States or attack American warships in distant ports. All they need to do is go to Iraq.

MORALE BOOSTER

But a senior Bush administration official, while cautioning that violence will probably continue for...