In a hole

A coup or a war is not over until the head of the rival grouping has been beheaded or captured.

It has been an embarrassment for the US that, more than two years after the war on terror began, it has been able to get neither Osama bin Laden nor Mullah Omar, nor Saddam Hussein.

That last embarrassment has now ended and will clearly be a boost for President Bush at home, and a relief for his army in Iraq.

It will also demoralise the opposition within Iraq, though it is obvious that violence is not about to end.

It does however make it easier for the US to press ahead with its plan of action in Iraq, and perhaps even pull out the bulk of its forces before the next presidential election.

In short, the 'war on terror' has notched up a major success. And, as predictably as the sun rises in the morning, governments from around the world, whether they supported military action or not, have issued statements saying that Saddam Hussein's capture is a positive thing.

But it is sobering that within 24 hours of his capture being announced, there are reports of car-bombings north of Baghdad.

The coalition will have to put Saddam on trial. Here there is a risk that he will reveal the historical involvement of the various governments who helped arm him and keep him in power during the worst stages of his rule.

No doubt there will be some who would have wished that he had been caught dead, not alive. Nor have the televised pictures been particularly helpful, as they have only created some sympathy for him, however misplaced.

The opinion on Arab street makes the form that Saddam's trial will take vitally important. There are many options.

The first of these, under active consideration, is to set up an Iraqi tribunal, overseen by international observers; this raises questions about the quality of the tribunal, as it will have no experience in prosecuting such crimes and might give the impression from the start that only one conclusion is possible.

The wiser option therefore is an international tribunal set up by the United Nations, which is the only organisation that will be seen as being as close to impartial as one can get.

UN tribunals have extensive experience of prosecuting war crimes and this case is too important for too many people, if things were to go wrong.

The old issue of weapons of mass destruction will now arise with more verve. The whole reason for going to war in Iraq was Saddam's possession of WMDs and his propensity to use them.

But, since his capture, he has denied that he ever had them. There is, of course, no doubt that he had them at some point in time.

However, whether he had them at the time it was decided to attack Iraq or in such quantities as required an invasion, is questionable.

The failure of the US/UK task force to find them leads many to believe that military action was contrived for other reasons, such as oil or imperialistic ambitions. Whether the capture of Saddam leads to a cache of weapons is yet to be seen.