Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s deposed leader, was last night found by US forces at the bottom of a hole near his home town of Tikrit, it was announced today.
Without a shot being fired, members of the US army’s 4th infantry division and special forces closed in at 8.30pm yesterday local time (1730 GMT) on a small walled farming compound 10 miles south of the city where they discovered the hiding place.
Video footage of Saddam’s medical inspection after he was pulled from the hole showed a dishevelled figure with unkempt dark hair and a thick beard that had become grey.
The T.V. talking heads, and those that play Iraqi experts in the blogoshere, are all speculating what it means now on the ground. Clearly, this changes the atmosphere in Iraq. But Saddam’s appearance and the manner he was captured suggest that lately he’s been much more of a symbolic rather than operational leader. So this may or may not have a direct impact on the insurgency.
The drama continues.