"this is the analysis I'm looking at:"
World Leaders Cheer Saddam's Capture
Sun December 14, 2003 09:46 AM ET
By Richard Meares
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LONDON (Reuters) - Worldwide jubilation Sunday at the capture of fugitive Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein showed how friendless he was.
Even France and Germany, fierce opponents of the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam, lauded his arrest by American forces, who seized him Saturday without firing a shot.
French President Jacques Chirac said: "This is a major event which should strongly contribute to the democratization and the stabilization of Iraq and allow the Iraqis to once more be masters of their destiny in a sovereign Iraq."
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder saluted President Bush in a telegram while again urging international efforts to rebuild the shattered oil state.
"Saddam Hussein caused horrible suffering to his people and the region. I hope the capture will help the international community's effort to rebuild and stabilize Iraq," he wrote.
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As news of the capture spread across Iraq, gunfire crackled in celebration around Baghdad.
There was no immediate word from Bush but his officials were overjoyed that Saddam would no longer be an elusive bogeyman like al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," a beaming U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said. "The tyrant is a prisoner."
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Bush's staunchest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was one of the first to confirm the arrest and said the new Iraq was of benefit mainly to the people who suffered under Saddam.
"This has lifted a shadow from the people of Iraq. Saddam will not be returning," he said.
A spokeswoman for Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, one of the first countries to commit troops to the war, said: "Saddam's capture will lift a huge burden and remove a great fear from the people of Iraq."
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, another U.S. ally, said the arrest removed the main block to peace and democracy.
"Saddam Hussein is the cause of all the poverty and suffering of the Iraqi people," he said. "Today, the moment has arrived for him to pay for his crimes."
Saddam had no close allies abroad and his arch foe Iran, whom he fought for most of the 1980s, joined in the call for the fallen dictator to pay for what he had done.
"Saddam should be prosecuted because of the crimes he has committed against the Iraqi and Iranian people," Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said.
"Iranians have suffered a lot because of him and mass graves in Iraq prove the crimes he has committed against the Iraqi people. The news of the arrest of a criminal has made me very happy."
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Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi told Reuters Saddam would be put on trial. A tribunal system for Iraqis to try Saddam and fellow Baathist leaders was set up last week.
An Iraqi government to be formed by June will be free to re-establish the death penalty. Saddam made free use of execution, killing thousands during his years in power.
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"We want Saddam to get what he deserves. I believe he will be sentenced to hundreds of death sentences at a fair trial because he's responsible for all the massacres and crimes in Iraq," said Amar al-Hakim, a leader of the Shi'ite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
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The arrest is a boon for Bush after seven months of increasingly bloody attacks on U.S. forces and their allies following Saddam's ousting on April 9.
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Russia and China, both members of the U.N. Security Council, had no immediate comment and the news was pushed to the end of the nightly state television news broadcast.
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reuters.com |
