Ralph Peters has some thoughts on the impact of Saddam’s capture:
THERE are three essential rules for men to live by: Never write checks to your mistress on an account you share with your wife; never wear any article of clothing featured in a New York Times fashion supplement; and, if you’re a dictator-on-the-run, never carry 500 pages of key information about your resistance movement around in your suitcase.
The circumstances and images of Saddam’s capture will reverberate for decades, with profound psychological and practical consequences in the Middle East and beyond. But the most immediate and tangible results have come from the documents he carried.
With breathtaking speed, our intelligence professionals in Iraq began scouring those papers for actionable data. They found it. And they continue to find it.
In Baghdad, Samarra and elsewhere, U.S. Army units launched a series of raids that scooped up key coordinators and financiers from the Ba’athist resistance, along with significant numbers of the middle managers and line supervisors of terror.
One raid brought in over 70 enemy operatives, another netted 30. Less visible operations round up more of the sponsors of terror every day.
This matters. It’s huge. Contrary to Howard Dean’s sour-grapes whining, Saddam’s apprehension certainly has made America safer. Even more obviously, it’s making Iraq a safer place for our troops. The calculus isn’t hard: When you take into custody significant numbers of Ba’athist terrorists – directors, financiers, middlemen, assassins – it keeps GIs alive.
