Saddam Hussein Is Captured in a Farmhouse Hideout, the Bam Earthquake Kills 26,000 on December 26 and Gaddafi Surrenders Libya’s Nuclear Programme

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 January 2004 | Reporting Period: 3 October – 2 January 2004

Quarterly Briefing

• US forces capture Saddam Hussein on December 13 in a farmhouse hideout near Tikrit; the former Iraqi president is found in a shallow underground pit, dishevelled and without resistance; his capture provides a significant symbolic and psychological boost to the Bush administration after months of deepening insurgency; Saddam is taken into US military custody and will face trial before an Iraqi tribunal; the reaction in Iraq is mixed, with Shia and Kurdish jubilation and Sunni silence.
• A magnitude-6.6 earthquake strikes the ancient city of Bam in southeastern Iran on December 26, killing an estimated 26,000 people and injuring 30,000 more; Bam’s mud-brick architecture, including the 2,000-year-old Arg-e Bam citadel — the world’s largest adobe structure — collapses almost entirely; the earthquake occurs in the early hours of the morning, when most residents are indoors and asleep; international rescue teams are mobilising as this edition goes to press; the full death toll may be higher than current estimates.
• Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi announces on December 19 that Libya will surrender its weapons of mass destruction programmes and accept international inspection; the announcement follows nine months of secret negotiations with the United States and United Kingdom; Libya agrees to dismantle nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes, providing material that reveals the extent of A.Q. Khan’s nuclear proliferation network in Pakistan; the deal is described by both Washington and London as a triumph for coercive diplomacy.
• Two coordinated truck bombings strike the British Consulate and the headquarters of HSBC bank in Istanbul on November 20, killing 27 people, five days after two synagogues in the city were bombed on November 15, killing 30; the attacks are attributed to Al-Qaeda affiliated networks; Turkey, a NATO member and candidate for EU accession, is the deepest penetration of Islamist terrorism into a European-allied Muslim country; the Istanbul bombings coincide with President Bush’s state visit to the United Kingdom.
• The Iraq insurgency intensifies through October and November despite the capture of Saddam; suicide bombings strike the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad in October, narrowly missing Deputy Defence Secretary Wolfowitz; the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad is bombed on October 27; the pattern of attacks demonstrates that the insurgency is not dependent on Saddam’s leadership and retains operational capacity across the Sunni triangle.
• Caribbean oil markets feel the continued pressure of crude prices above $30 per barrel; the OPEC decision in October to cut production quotas by 900,000 barrels per day from November 1 limits the relief that seasonal demand patterns would otherwise provide; Jamaica’s foreign exchange reserves face ongoing pressure from the fuel import bill; the government monitors the oil market closely for indications of sustained price relief.

Prologue: The Quarter That Found Saddam

The last three months of 2003 were bracketed by two events whose magnitude was difficult to absorb in real time: the capture of Saddam Hussein and the Bam earthquake. The capture, on December 13, ended the hunt for the most wanted man in Iraq and provided the Bush administration with its most unambiguous success since the statue fell in Firdos Square in April. The earthquake, on December 26, killed 26,000 people in a single night in an Iranian city of mud-brick houses. For the Caribbean, both events were distant in geography but immediate in consequence: the capture reduced one major source of oil market uncertainty while the earthquake reminded the world, and the region, that catastrophic vulnerability was not confined to zones of conflict.

Saddam’s Capture and Iraq’s Unresolved Future

The images of Saddam Hussein in US custody — his hair long, beard matted, submitting to a medical examination — circulated globally within hours of his capture and were interpreted as a moment of definitive closure on the Baath era. President Bush announced the capture from the White House; Paul Bremer, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator, told a Baghdad press conference: “We got him.” The public reaction in Shia and Kurdish Iraq was celebratory; the reaction in the Sunni triangle was muted. Whether the capture would reduce the insurgency, which had intensified through October and November despite Saddam being at large, was the key question. The weeks following the capture did not provide an encouraging answer; the pace of attacks did not fall significantly.

The Gaddafi announcement three days later, on December 19, offered a second piece of good news for the Bush administration’s foreign policy. The disclosure that Libya had secretly possessed an advanced nuclear programme, acquired through A.Q. Khan’s network in Pakistan, and had agreed to surrender it entirely, was presented as evidence that the Iraq War had demonstrated the credibility of American military threat. Sceptics noted that the Libyan negotiations had begun well before the invasion; the causal relationship between Iraq and Libya’s disarmament was more ambiguous than the official presentation. For the Caribbean, the Libyan deal was a secondary story; its primary significance was the further revelation of Pakistani nuclear proliferation, which had regional security implications for South Asia where Caribbean diaspora communities were concentrated.

Bam and the Scale of Catastrophe

The Bam earthquake struck at 5:26 in the morning local time on December 26, when the city’s population of 100,000 was largely asleep. The buildings of Bam — constructed primarily from mud brick, which offered no resistance to seismic force — collapsed almost instantaneously; the Arg-e Bam citadel, 2,000 years old and a UNESCO World Heritage site, was reduced to rubble. Iranian search and rescue teams were overwhelmed within hours; international response teams from across the world arrived within days. As this edition is published, official confirmed deaths stand at 26,000; relief officials believe the toll will rise further as rubble is cleared.

Looking Ahead

Iraq faces a pivotal year: the Coalition Provisional Authority is scheduled to hand sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government by June 30, 2004; elections for a transitional assembly must follow. Whether the insurgency can be sufficiently suppressed to make a credible transfer of power possible is the defining question. Saddam’s trial, when it comes, will be among the most watched legal proceedings of the decade. The Bam relief operation will continue through January; Iran’s capacity to manage the reconstruction without sustained international assistance is limited. For the Caribbean, the new year opens with oil prices stable but elevated; the fiscal room for regional governments to absorb further shocks is narrow.

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review is published quarterly, examining how wars, geopolitical tensions and major international crises have shaped Jamaica, the Caribbean and their economies.

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