Mood swings follow US capture of Saddam
News of the capture of Saddam triggered mixed reactions across the Arab world, from jubilation to shock and disbelief, writes Sherine Bahaa
"They got Saddam!" The three words flew round the Arab world even before US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer's press conference last Sunday. At first, there were fears that it was only a rumour, but then, barely restraining a growing euphoria, people celebrated. However, the celebrations lasted little longer than the time it took to air the videotape of the former Iraqi president looking unkempt and dishevelled in the hands of his American captors. Then the mood changed, and something like bitterness set in.
Though most Arab governments, with the exceptions of Kuwait and Qatar, were restrained in their reaction to the news of Saddam's capture by US forces in Iraq, Arab leaders could barely contain their concern that a prominent member of their number, the previous host of many Arab summits, could be treated in such a humiliating way by his captors.
This spectacle was not what they had wanted, even after blaming Saddam for driving his country, and the region, to war and destruction. However, not applauding the US operation to arrest Saddam was reaction enough in itself, except in the case of Kuwait where the jubilation seemed unanimous: both the Kuwaiti government and opposition could barely contain their glee at the fall of the Gulf state's former enemy.
Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al- Sabah sent a message to US President George W Bush congratulating him on the US capture of Saddam, and Mohamed Abul-Hassan, a high-level Kuwaiti official, told the BBC that the capture had been "the minute we, and the whole world, have been waiting for".
"Thank God he has been captured alive, so that he can be tried for the heinous crimes he has committed," Abul-Hassan said. Such words from the country invaded by Saddam's troops in 1990 is understandable, but sharing the same feelings was the Qatari government, whose foreign minister announced that after the capture of Saddam the continuing presence of US troops in Iraq was even more vital.
However, the Kuwaiti and Qatari reactions did not represent reactions to the news elsewhere in the Arab world, where there was a popular feeling of shock that Saddam, a symbol for some of Arab resistance, had appeared on television in such a haggard and dishevelled way, allowing a humiliating examination from a US army medic.
For his part, Amr Moussa, secretary- general of the Arab League, said merely that the US capture of Saddam was "an important event", stressing that the Iraqi people should now decide the former Iraqi president's fate.
"Is this really Saddam Hussein?" asked Ahmed Ayash, a Tunisian watching footage of Saddam's arrest in a coffee shop in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. "I cannot believe that the man who ruled Iraq for more than 30 years, and who was known for his bloody nature, would give in that easily unless he had been subjected to a sudden attack that had left him unconscious."
For some Arabs, the American capture of Saddam has been presented in the dramatic way it was in order to boost the domestic popularity of President Bush. For others, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq is anathema, despite their dislike of Saddam.
"I only wish it had not been the Americans who got him," said Syrian student Abdel-Nasser, speaking for many. "I don't like Saddam, but as an Arab I also don't care to see the Americans dragging him around Baghdad."
In Syria, as in other places, the conspiracy theories have already begun to circulate. "The Americans have known the hideout of Saddam Hussein for months, and when it became ripe to declare it they just went in. In short, the US has just played a winning card," said Emad Shoeibi, political science professor at Damascus University in Syria.
"It seems to me that the countdown for the pullout of US troops has started, but the danger remains of the US now moving to another target," he added.
In general, Arab public opinion has been disapproving of the way Saddam's capture by US troops has been presented and the humiliation the former Iraqi president has been forced to undergo on world television.
"This footage of Saddam's capture is only part of a series whose script was written in the US and was then played out in parts, the last ones of which were the war, the fall of Baghdad and the destruction of Saddam's statue, followed by the kidnapping of Qusay and Uday [Saddam's sons, killed by US forces in Iraq earlier this year], and now the capture of Saddam himself," said a university student.
"The next installment in the US script will be the trial of Saddam -- all parts of Bush's re-election campaign," the girl added.
In Lebanon, too, the situation was tense following news of the US capture of Saddam at the weekend, people being stunned at how easily the former Iraqi leader had apparently been captured.
However, the capture of Saddam did not necessarily spell US victory. "The capture of Saddam will not save the US from the world's condemnation for supporting the greater enemy, [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon," said Selim Al-Hoss, former Lebanese prime minister.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Jordan the head of the country's Bar Association, Hussein Mijali, called for the creation of an Arab legal defence team for the captured former Iraqi leader, describing him as the "legitimate president of Iraq".
"We call for the formation of an Arab defence team for the legitimate president of Iraq," Mijali told the French news agency AFP, "because the US occupation is illegal, and anything that stems from it is null and void."
A statement issued by the Jordanian government fell short of welcoming the US capture of Saddam, saying only that Jordan hoped that this event would lead to the dawning of a new era for Iraq.
Iran, a long-term enemy of Saddam, joined in the call for a new era of justice in Iraq. The Iranians have started compiling documents to present to any tribunal formed to try the former Iraqi leader, in order to remember the thousands of Iranians who died in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, during which Saddam is thought to have used weapons of mass destruction against Iranian cities.
"An international court should determine who equipped this dictator to disrupt our region and impose three crises on it," said Iranian government spokesman Abdullah Ramazanzadeh, referring to Saddam's attacks on Iran and Kuwait and the later US invasion of Iraq.
