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Killing Saddam's Sons Gains Resistance Momentum: Fisk 

"Their theory is that once the Hussein family is decapitated, the resistance will end," Fisk 

LONDON , July 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. believes that the killing of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's sons, Qusay and Uday, will bring to an end the relentless Iraqi resistance, which left a daily trail of U.S. dead soldiers, but to the contrary, a famed British journalist wrote Wednesday, July 23. 

Robert Fisk said in his article published in the Independent that there is a fundamental misunderstanding between the American occupation authorities in Iraq and the people whose country they are occupying that the entire resistance to " America 's proconsulship of Iraq " is composed of "remnants" of Saddam's followers "dead-enders" and "bitter-enders."

"Their theory is that once the Hussein family is decapitated, the resistance will end," he said. 

U.S. military officials on the ground said they had identified the bodied of Qusay and Uday who were reportedly killed in an attack on a house at al-Falah district in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, July 22.

"The burned, bullet-splashed villa in Mosul, the four bullet-ridden corpses, America's hopes - however vain - that the death of Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay, will break the guerrilla resistance to Iraq's U.S. occupation troops, all conspired to produce an illusion last night," Fisk said, referring to the U.S. bids to leave the impression that the Iraqi resistance was in its throes by the incident.

But Fisk says that the killing of Qusay, Uday and even the much-hoped of Saddam himself will only gain the Iraqi resistance momentum in the days ahead, given that the members of the Iraqi resistance along with the Sunni community in the war-scarred country never had any love for Saddam.

"If he and his sons are dead, the chances are that the opposition to the American-led occupation will grow rather than diminish - on the grounds that with Saddam gone, Iraqis will have nothing to lose by fighting the Americans," Fisk said.

"Many Iraqis were (also) reluctant to support the resistance for fear that an end to American occupation would mean the return of the ghastly old dictator," he added. 

'Miserable Failures' 

"Sustaining the peace is harder, more complex, and often costlier than winning the war itself," Gephardt

The respected journalist, however, cast doubts that "the unidentified bodies" found after a six-hour gun battle between Iraqi gunmen and the U.S. "Task Force 20", which combines both CIA agents and special forces, were of Qusay and Uday.

He said that the U.S. intelligence services which received a tip-off from an Iraqi source were know for their "miserable failures," citing examples of such failures.

"But this is the same Task Force 20 that blasted to death the occupants of a convoy heading for the Syrian border earlier this month, a convoy whose travelers were meant to include Saddam himself and even the two sons supposedly killed yesterday. The victims turned out to be only smugglers," he said.

Fisk also said that the CIA, which failed to predict the events of the 9/11 attacks, was also responsible for the air raid on a Saddam palace on March 20, which sparked the war and was targeting Saddam himself.

"And the far crueler air raid on the Mansour district of Baghdad at the end of the air bombardment in April which was supposed to kill Saddam and his sons but only succeeded in slaughtering 16 innocent civilians. All proved to be miserable failures," he added. 

He also ruled out that Saddam's sons would ever be together for security considerations.

"And in a family obsessed with their own personal security, would Uday and Qusay really be together? Would they allow themselves to be trapped? The two so-called "lions of Iraq " (this courtesy of Saddam) in the very same cage?" He asked. 

"Even in power, Saddam and his sons were in hiding. Even if DNA testing proves that the corpses are those of Saddam's sons, will Iraqis believe it? And will it bring the guerrilla war to an end?" He added. 

'Arrogant Unilateralism'

On the other extreme, U.S. Democrats and Congressmen were satisfied with the killing of the two brothers, but disappointed at the slow pace of rebuilding and restoring civil order in Iraq with Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri, the House minority leader who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, one Congressman slamming Bush's "arrogant unilateralism" and "machismo."

Gephardt said in San Francisco that Bush had treated U.S. allies "like so many flies on America ’s windshield" and should immediately seek U.N. and NATO help in stabilizing Iraq , the Herald Tribune reported Wednesday. 

"Foreign policy isn’t a John Wayne movie," Gephardt said. "And yes, sustaining the peace is harder, more complex, and often costlier than winning the war itself."

Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts commented on the killing of Qusay and Uday by saying: "It's progress, but I still think we need an overall strategy."

"American servicemen are at risk every single day, and it seems to me we ought to find ways working through the United Nations and NATO, as we did with Bosnia and Kosovo, to help provide relief for our servicemen, and help construct Democratic institutions," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Kennedy as saying.

Senator Carl Levin, a vocal critic of the postwar administration of Iraq , said that greater international cooperation is the only way to improve the long-range outlook there.

"It's a very difficult situation," the Michigan Democrat said immediately after the briefing, insisting that "we ought to reach out to the international community," for financial and logistical support in restoring order in Iraq .

The leader of the senate's Democrats, Tom Daschle, was also restrained in celebrating Uday and Qusay's demise, saying that while "no one can underestimate the value of the developments today" it won't be nearly enough to help a struggling Iraq back to its feet.

"What many of us have said from the beginning is that in order to win the peace we need more help. We need more resources, we need more personnel, we need more international involvement. This doesn't change that," Daschle said.

"It's critical we get international help. And I think it's critical we continue to press forward."

Russia also held back Wednesday from "celebrating" the news by saying the incident was still no guarantee for the future security of Iraq .

Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov said it was difficult for Moscow to judge how news that Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay had been killed in a shootout with U.S. troops would help improve the stability in a nation where skirmishes continue on a daily basis.

"Of course we are following the situation in Iraq . We judge any set of events first of all by how they affect the actual situation," Fedotov told reporters in the Russian foreign ministry building.

"The regime in Iraq has changed and the main efforts must now be focused on the process of reconstruction, an end to crime, the formation of state authorities, and the restoration of the very basic needs of the Iraqi people," he said.

But Fedotov added: "It is difficult for me to say how this fact can affect the future situation in Iraq ."


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