I share with Manjit Bhatia my utter disgust at the sycophantic antics of the journalists present at the press conference by US ambassador to Iraq Paul Bremer that announced the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Instead of asking pertinent questions or even those of a curious kind (like who would be collecting the US$25 million reward), these so-called journalists instead fell into obsequious exclamations of gratitude for their American benefactors. One begins to wonder whether such grovelling and emotional displays of whooping (fortunately no gun was allowed in the building, otherwise they would have fired theirs in the air as well) would be usual of journalists? Presumably none were from Al-Jazeera .

I thought Bremer himself looked rather embarrassed at the excessive fawning displayed so shamelessly by these jokers. It was a miracle they did not rush forward to kiss the shoes of Bremer or Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, top US military commander in Iraq.

While the capture of Saddam has never been an objective in itself - apart from holding him for the trial for crimes against the Iraqi people - Americans now should interrogate him so that the two elusive questions that were the raison d'etre for the invasion of Iraq may now be answered. Firstly, where are the weapons of mass destruction that the coalition claimed Saddam had? Secondly, was there a link between al-Qaeda and his regime?

Let's get all these answered, unless of course the capture of Saddam has evolved into the (only?) objective of the invasion. With all the whooping and cheering that were going on in that press conference, and the bandwagon congratulatory messages coming in from all around the world, maybe the Americans ought to capitalise on this goodwill and make it so, that is, the capture of Saddam as the objective of the war. The US should quit while they are ahead!