Analysis: The capture of Saddam will give a huge political boost to President Bush but, as the US military has noted, one man alone has not been behind the raqi resistance, writes Conor O'Clery in New York.
For the first time since the fall of Baghdad there was real jubilation in the United States yesterday over a US military success in Iraq, far surpassing that when Saddam's sons Qusay and Uday were killed on July 22nd in Mosul.
The joy of seeing Saddam captured was shared alike by the President, his political opponents and people in the street. The finding of the "Ace in the Hole", as one headline put it, referring to Saddam's place as the Ace of Spades on the US most-wanted list, has raised hopes that the organised Iraqi resistance will at last be broken and that stability can be provided for Iraqis to establish a sovereign government.
The insurgency has resulted in the deaths of more than 190 US soldiers, not to mention hundreds of other victims ranging from Iraqi police to UN officials and diplomats, since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1st. It has prevented the oil from flowing and set back efforts at reconstruction.
The seizure of the Iraqi dictator is a devastating psychological blow to Saddam loyalists. The humiliating pictures of a dishevelled Saddam having his mouth swabbed by US doctors will diminish his stature in the Arab world. The capture removes the fear among ordinary Iraqis that Saddam can come back, or that while on the run he could order vengeance against his Iraqi enemies.
But it is a limited military victory. US army commanders have said recently they did not think the capture of Saddam alone would end the insurgency. President Bush took care to warn the nation in his broadcast yesterday, "this does not mean the end of violence in Iraq". Indeed there could be a downside to getting what one wished for.
The insurgency is not now tainted by Saddam, and anti-Saddam Iraqis with grievances against the Americans will no longer have to fear being identified with the dictator or facilitating his return to power some day. Many of the recruits to the insurgency, according to interviews that have begun appearing in the US press, are motivated not by any loyalty to Saddam but by alleged mistreatment at the hands of US forces, the US killings of civilians in firefights, and resentment at foreign occupation. There is also a core of suicide bombers, many foreign-born, who can be recruited for attacks on Americans or their helpers.
Much may depend on how willing Saddam is to co-operate with his captors and give information about his role in the insurgency. Mr Bush said he would face the justice denied to the millions he oppressed. But it may not be as simple as that.
Saddam himself may have an ace in the hole in the form of information on the elusive weapons of mass destruction. If he were to give the Americans proof that they were right all along in their case for going to war, since widely discredited, the Bush administration might not be adverse to a bit of plea-bargaining.
It is unlikely, however, that Saddam has any such information. His aides say he had got rid of unconventional weapons and that the Iraqi dictator either knew that or was duped by his own commanders. Just this week the United Nations' top weapons inspector, Mr Demetrius Perricos, said most of the weapons and research documented by the US-led inspection team in Iraq was known to the UN before the American invasion. (The only significant new information was that Iraq had paid North Korea $10 million for medium-range missile technology that was never delivered).
The Americans now have to decide what to do with Saddam. A public trial in Iraq, an option favoured by the Iraqi governing council, would enhance the secondary reason advanced by the Americans and British to justify the war - that he was a ruthless dictator who eliminated hundreds of thousands of his own citizens.
The council established a special tribunal just last Wednesday to try top members of Saddam's government for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity between July 17th, 1968, when Saddam came to power, and May 1st, 2003, and were prepared to try Saddam in absentia.
The priority of the US-led coalition in the post-Saddam era which properly began yesterday will be the stabilisation of Iraq and the "Iraqisation" of the country so that US troops can start coming home before the presidential election in November.
Huge problems remain to be tackled. Transatlantic bitterness over Iraq is just as deep as ever in the wake of the Pentagon's decision last week to exclude non-coalition countries from bidding for reconstruction contracts in Iraq. US hopes to internationalise the conflict have been dashed as major allies refused to provide troops.
The UN has pulled out of Iraq and is unlikely to return until there is reasonable assurance that their officials will not be killed.
Plans for a 40,000-strong new Iraqi army to help take over US military tasks have been set back by the defection of almost half of the first 700-man unit to be trained. These troops and the Iraqi police force are crucial to US plans to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis by the middle of next year.
Almost lost yesterday in the news coverage of Saddam's capture was the fact that at least 17 people, mostly Iraqi police officers, were killed by a suspected suicide bomber at a police station west of Baghdad. American Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez admitted in Baghdad yesterday that "we do not expect at this point in time that we will have a complete elimination of those attacks".
The Iraqi insurgents have recently shown increasing sophistication in tactics and strategy. Since the summer the front lines have been pushed beyond the Sunni Triangle in central Iraq to cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk. The insurgents have been getting better intelligence, but so too have the US military, as was demonstrated so dramatically yesterday.
For President Bush, the capture of Saddam alive is a triumph that will affect the US political landscape. There has been widespread criticism of the administration for its blunders and appalling lack of post-war planning. Even Newt Gingrich, a Republican member of the Defence Department's advisory board, said last week that the US had "gone off a cliff" in Iraq.
The pro-war camp was especially jubilant yesterday, making the point - as did the hawkish Democratic candidate Joe Lieberman - that if the opponents of the war had had their way, Saddam would still be in power.
The biggest failure of the US in its two wars since 9/11, in Afghanistan and Iraq, had been the inability of US forces to capture Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi who tipped off the Americans about Saddam's hideout may have helped the US President move one step closer to re-election.
If US forces in Afghanistan can now capture the al-Qaeda leader, it could prove to be a real trump for Mr Bush in November 2004.