The basic logic of suicide bombing is "I will sacrifice my own life, but I am going to take a lot of people down with me". By that measure, Saddam was remarkeably succesful--far better than any of the 9/11 hijackers. Together, the 9/11 suiciders killed <3,000 Americans, and 0 Iraqis. Saddam has already taken more Americans with him, plus tens of thousands of Iraqis. And the toll will contiinue to rise.</p>
Now, I am not suggesting that Saddam willingly gave his life. I am sure he clung to survival like a drowning rat. But I am talking about the overall impact of his death. You can dress it up however you want, but getting Saddam was one of Bush's major motivations for going to war with Iraq. Remember Bush's line:
"After all, this is a guy who tried to kill my dad at one time."
And so we killed him. At no small cost.
W got his revenge--Bush won the battle. And Saddam won the war. We may never fully recover from the Iraq fiasco. Its as if Saddam hijacked a plane and threatened to kill all the passengers. The controllers get on the radio and negotiate with him--they get the plane to land at a nearby airpot. But its a stalemate--noone knows how to get the people off the plane. Then Bush drops a giant bomb on the plane, wiping out vast areas of the city and killing thousands of people. In Bush's mind, that would be teaching Saddam a lesson (besides, who knows what kind of weapon he might have had on the plane!). But for someone who's goal was to harm Americans, can sacrificing thousands of lives to kill Saddam be seen as anything other than a gift to Saddam? True, Saddam may not have pulled the trigger when the American's died, but does it matter? Even in death, he outfoxed W.