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Killing Saddam's Sons Gains Resistance Momentum: Fisk
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"Their theory is that once the Hussein family is decapitated, the resistance will end," Fisk
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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'
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"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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