Saddam’s Capture Sets Harvard Abuzz

Mark T. Silvestri ’05, president-elect of the Harvard Republican Club (HRC) woke up yesterday morning to news he had been awaiting for months—the capture of Saddam Hussein.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, announced yesterday morning that the 4th Infantry Division arrested the country’s former president at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday in an underground “spider” hole near the Tigris River, in the town of Adwar, ten miles from Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit.

“I was overjoyed to say the least,” Silvestri said. “I had sort of been hoping that one morning I would wake up and find the great news.”

Silvestri said that he learned of Saddam’s arrest from e-mail messages sent by HRC members who stayed up late Saturday night and learned the news before going to bed.

While word of Saddam’s capture was greeted with relief, some members of the Harvard community disagreed about the political implications of the arrest.

Noor A. al-Dabbagh ’06, president-elect of the Society of Arab Students, said that Saddam’s capture will boost American credibility among the Iraqi people.

“The Americans were actually able to do what they claimed they would do, which was capture Saddam,” she said.

Saddam’s capture eliminates a primary rationale for resisting the American forces, according to Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs Ashton B. Carter.

“I think many Iraqis have been concerned that if they joined in the movement to create a better Iraq along the lines we have been suggesting that they would put themselves at risk if...the Ba’athists were to come back,” Carter said.

But Stephen M. Walt, academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government and Belfer professor of international affairs, said that he was not convinced the capture will have a significant effect.

“My guess is the resistance to the coalition forces was not being directed by Saddam or led by him,” he said. “It reflected deep conflicts in Iraq and deep opposition to foreign presence.”

Walt said that he did not expect Saddam’s capture to affect American politics.

“The issue was never Saddam himself,” Walt said. “The question is whether capturing Saddam is going to affect the situation in Iraq.”

Winthrop Professor of History Stephan A. Thernstrom also said that American domestic politics would be unlikely to change because of the capture.

“Support for Bush’s policies is already pretty strong and I would guess that this would give a substantial boost in the polls,” Thernstrom said. “But two months from now this won’t show up unless there’s a change on the ground.”

Regina C. Schwartz ’06, president of Harvard Students for Howard Dean, said that she hopes the capture does not help Bush politically.

“I hope the American people won’t use this false portrayal of American heroism as a show of the United States’ justification for going into Iraq,” Schwartz said.

Andrew J. Frank ’05, president-elect of the Harvard College Democrats, said that the Democratic candidates will benefit from failed American efforts in Iraq.

“Bush and the Republicans are still going to have to deal with the fact that they screwed up the occupation,” he said.

But Frank also said that U.S. presidential candidate Howard B. Dean might suffer politically from Saddam’s capture.

“Sen. [Joseph I.] Lieberman, D-Conn.—I’m not sure about the other candidates—are going to use this to attack Howard Dean,” Frank said. “Sen. Lieberman has already said that if Howard Dean were president Saddam Hussein would still be in power.”

Any politician who can take advantage of Saddam’s capture may have a base of exuberant Americans to tap into.

“I was elated,” said Carter. “If they allowed people to fire AK-47s into the air in Winchester, Mass., and if I had one, I might have been tempted.”

“They don’t allow that in Winchester,” he added.

—Associated Press material was used in the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Joshua D. Gottlieb can be reached at jdgottl@fas.harvard.edu.