Bush's critics have not questioned whether the U.S. military could kill Iraqis; rather, they have accused the President of distorting evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States and its interests, one requiring a preemptive war. Critics also have called for Bush to seek more help from allies in policing postwar Iraq rather than having U.S. troops shoulder so much of the load. ...
The deaths of Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, are unlikely to silence the President's critics on either point unless Iraqi resistance to the American occupation ends with their deaths. And even Bush's supporters cautioned that the sons' demise was unlikely to end Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops or resistance to the occupation. ...
Republican pollster Bill McInturff said the killing of Hussein's sons "breaks the news cycle" that had put the President on the defensive. "We can have a broader discussion about the future and security of Iraq," he said, "and that broader discussion helps the President."
Again:
We should have figured out how to give Saddam's sons the Manuel Noriega treatment, and done it, just like George I did.
Saddam's sons would have been worth a lot more to us alive in captivity than they are dead.
Turning Saddam's sons over to the Hague tribunal for prosecution would have gotten the UN and the Europeans back on board, and gotten us some relief on reconstruction and on troops.
Turning them over to the Hague would have been better for the Iraqi people, too, who probably are not going to be persuaded that Saddam's sons are really dead by any dental records or DNA analysis CENTCOM can produce. Prosecuting them live on TV for weeks on end—that would have been persuasive. Such a strategy worked for the Peruvians when they captured Shining Path leader Guzman and put him in a cage. Why not go with what works?
Bush and his gang seem to think that "hard power"—killing lots of people using very expensive high-tech weaponry—is the essence of what it means to be a great power. The Bush gang likes it, their backers (e.g., Halliburton) like it, and it brings them a bump in news coverage and the polls. So they do it.
One of the best forms of "soft power" America has—I hope I don't have to say "had"— is a reputation for justice. The Constitution, the bill of rights, trial by jury, impartial judges, the rule of law. This reputation is an asset built up over centuries of experience, and for which many Americans gave their lives. (In a chilling sentence in Bush's State of the Union speech, Bush showed he was willing to throw this asset away: He identified "American Justice"with a policy of targeted assassination—frontier justice, like a lynching.)
Great powers that survive over centuries know that "soft power" is both more efficient and more effective than "hard power."
Bringing Saddam's sons to justice would have reinforced true "American justice." The Iraqi people would have seen Saddam's sons in captivity, and seen justice in action (which they have not seen much of). Our soft power would have been reinforced.
The strategy of bringing a dictator to justice instead of killing him worked in the Balkans with Slobadan Milosevic (but since Clinton did that, it must be wrong). Again, why not go with what works?
Killing Saddam's son's instead of bringing them to justice was a missed opportunity to serve the national interest and the Iraqi people.
Let's hope the Bush administration doesn't make the same mistake when another walk-in hands them Saddam.
Ritual disclaimer and troll prophylactic
Saddam is evil. Saddam's sons are evil. (I refuse, unlike the Bush apparat, to use the infantile phrase "bad guys.")
UPDATE AP reminds us that there's still an Exective Order on the books prohibiting assassinations of foreign leaders (for the very sensible reason that it's an open invitation for "an eye for an eye.") Bush trashes justice yet again.
UDPATE: Bush: "Yesterday, in the city of Mosul, the careers of two of the regime's chief henchmen came to an end. " What a euphemism. What I said.