The capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on Saturday provided a much-needed domestic popularity boost to the Bush administration's operations in Iraq. The failure of the US military to capture or kill Saddam in the opening days of the war has ironically played out in the administration's favour.

Because the American public was largely supportive of the US-led invasion of Iraq during the spring and early summer, the killing or capturing of Saddam would have had little political value then. By capturing Saddam at a time when Americans are losing patience with US operations in Iraq, the Bush administration has increased its domestic support and has acquired some breathing room from an increasingly skeptical public.

Additionally, campaign strategists in the administration have managed to successfully portray the primary US objectives in Iraq as revolving around the fate of Saddam.

In the buildup to the war, the primary justification offered by the Bush administration for invading the country was that Saddam's Ba'ath Party possessed and was developing weapons of mass destruction.

Last October, President George W Bush argued that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear weapons programme. Saddam has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahideen' his nuclear holy warriors"

Even three days prior to the start of the US invasion, Vice-President Dick Cheney claimed that Iraq had "reconstituted nuclear weapons."

The administration also argued that Baghdad had extensive supplies of chemical and biological weapons. Bush accused Baghdad of hiding "over 25,000 liters of anthrax" and "more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin."

Unacceptable risk

The Bush administration sought justification to invade Iraq on the basis that Baghdad posed an unacceptable risk to US interests because of its supposed supply of weapons of mass destruction. The administration also made the link, albeit indirectly, that Saddam had ties to the radical Islamic fundamentalist group al-Qaeda and may have been partially responsible for the Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The fact that Saddam was a particularly ruthless leader who practiced a hard-line policy of domestic dissent was eclipsed by these other factors and merely served as a subsidiary motive given to the American people as a reason to invade.

Early in the war, the Bush administration assured that Saddam would be out of the picture fairly early. In the opening salvo of the invasion, a series of "decapitation strikes" were launched with the intent of quickly eliminating Saddam and other members of the Ba'athist leadership.

After the attacks failed, and US forces took control of Baghdad, the American people and the administration expected to either capture or kill Saddam in the coming weeks. Instead, Saddam managed to elude US-led coalition forces even though the rest of the former leadership was captured or killed, including Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay.

As the war progressed, the failure to find the large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration alleged existed - the main justification for the US-led invasion - damaged the administration's credibility.

The fact that the administration told falsehoods to the American people by arguing that they knew exactly where the weapons were, began to create a growing rift between the American people and the administration.

For instance, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed on March 30 this year that he knew where Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction were located, asserting, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

The administration was forced to admit that their claims were not completely correct, and, in some cases, "overstated."

In addition to the failure to find the alleged quantities of weapons of mass destruction, the administration also backtracked on their continuous attempts to link Saddam's Ba'athist government with al-Qaeda.

The decision to distance themselves from this claim came when the Democratic Party started to use the administration's unsupported arguments about this connection against the administration. Indeed, it caused Bush to state in mid-September that, "We've had no evidence that Saddam was involved with Sept 11."

Sinking popularity

To compound these two disconnects, an insurgency in Iraq slowly developed, causing many unexpected casualties for US troops. Insurgents engaged in sniper and rocket propelled grenade attacks, planned and executed roadside and car bombings, and were successful in shooting down US helicopters, inflicting significant casualties.

These three developments caused the administration's popularity to sink among the American people. Not only did the administration's reasons for going to war prove to be, at best, unfounded, and, at worst, contrived, but US troops were now facing a mounting insurgency that was invoking the spectre of US involvement in Vietnam.

With the insurgency continuing, and the failure of the American public to feel that the US accomplished its mission in Iraq, the administration's political future was looking bleak.

Thankfully for the administration, the US military managed to capture Saddam on Saturday, delivering an important political victory that, with the right direction from the White House, rewrote the reasons as to why the war was initially waged.

The capture of Saddam has made many Americans feel that the mission in Iraq has been completed and that Washington has largely achieved its objectives there. After having the initial motives for the war proved false, the Bush administration and much of the American populace are now arguing that the capture of Saddam was the primary mission.

For instance, after his capture the White House put tremendous effort into trumping up Saddam's many human rights abuses; while these abuses are true, they never were before used as one of the sole reasons to institute "regime change" in Baghdad.

Nevertheless, the support that the administration has achieved with its capture of Saddam may only be temporary. The Iraqi insurgency appears to be diverse and apart from the old established Ba'athist order.

If appearances mirror truth in this instance, the insurgency will continue full steam despite the capture of Saddam. If the US-led coalition continues to lose troops and fails to stabilise the pivotal Middle Eastern country, the Bush administration's recently gained domestic support will quickly recede.

Furthermore, barring the sudden discovery of weapons of mass destruction, the capture of Saddam may have been the administration's last political stimulus in this festering conflict.

Report Drafted By: Erich Marquardt

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe.