WASHINGTON — Many Iraqis and Americans have looked forward to the day when justice would catch up with Saddam Hussein. Yet, when it arrived in Iraq on Saturday, it seemed to be much less than the historic turning point many once had anticipated.
With Iraq beset by violence and turmoil, the dictator's demise no longer appeared to signal the beginning of new order. After a trial marked by disruption and controversy, the execution seemed only another reminder that the country's divisions remain deep and seemingly insoluble nearly four years after the American invasion.
"If everything had followed the coalition plan, if everything were calm now, this could have been the biggest event of the year, maybe the biggest event in the post-invasion," said Henri J. Barkey, a former State Department official and Mideast specialist. "This is not just a sideshow. But everyday existence is so grave and grim, it's not what it might have been."
Ever since Saddam was toppled from power, Bush administration officials have pinned their hopes on a procession of developments — the elections, the capture of the former leader and the killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to name a few — to reshape opinions in the United States and Iraq about the American mission.
But while some of the events have affected public opinion, none has so far succeeded in convincing most Americans that things have fundamentally changed for the better.
"I just don't see this as a big turning point," said Daniel P. Serwer, a former U.S. diplomat and State Department official now at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
Even among some officials in the Bush administration, the potential for a positive reaction to Saddam's death was considered limited.
One U.S. official said he believed that the execution would serve as a reminder that Saddam was a danger to Iraqis as well as the region. But the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, acknowledged that the development's impact is likely to be "limited," in part because of the continuing difficulties in Iraq, and in part because it has been foreseen for some time.
Any positive reaction among Americans also is likely to be muted by disenchantment over the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. The casualty count stood at 2,996 late Friday and is expected to reach 3,000 this weekend.
Saddam's capture in December 2003 gave Bush a temporary boost in the polls but little else. Today's execution will do little or nothing to bolster Bush's public approval ratings — currently in the mid-30s — or to improve a devolving security situation in Iraq, several analysts and pollsters say.
"Anytime the White House uses the term 'milestone' it's a stone around the president's neck," said Ray Tanter, a national security professor at Georgetown University and a National Security Council member under President Reagan. "You do not change the situation in Iraq by capturing Saddam, convicting Saddam and executing Saddam. Nothing changes the insurgency except a political deal. The president may get a little bump from this, but it will quickly go down because the situation on the ground hasn't changed."
In Iraq, the execution of Saddam has commanded attention, but it may not outlast the daily struggle faced by most Iraqis.
"People in Iraq today are concerned with very basic things these days. Will this put more food on the table, make the streets safer, put more electricity in the wires?" Serwer asked. "The answer is likely not. So many people will not see this as that big."
Two years ago, it appeared that Iraqis were beginning a dialogue about their common history and Saddam's place in it. If the country had made greater steps toward a unified view of their history, then Saddam's execution might have more weight, said Nathan Brown, a specialist in Arab politics at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But with the country increasingly fractured along sectarian lines "this is a bit more of a sideshow than it would have been," Brown said.
Saddam's execution also would have carried more significance had his trial been carried out differently, some experts said.
Barkey, who is now at Lehigh University, believes the Iraqis made a major mistake in trying Saddam for the killings of 148 Shiite men and boys in the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt, rather than for the gassing of Kurds that killed about 5,000 persons.
By executing Saddam for "a relatively minor crime ... you're leaving this important chapter open," said Barkey. The attacks on Kurds were clear violations of international laws, he said.
"It's one of the reasons the United States went to war, and yet they're leaving that unresolved," Barkey said. "It's very problematic."
He said that decision has let many Kurds feeling that "they are being cheated — they have not received justice."
Juan R. Cole, a Mideast specialist at the University of Michigan, said the nature of the trial would also tend to further divide Iraqis, rather than heal past wounds.
Because the charges concerned Saddam's reprisals against members of a revolutionary Shiite party, Dawa—which happens to be the party of the current and last Iraqi prime ministers—the execution would look to many Sunnis as simple score-settling.
"This can be read as the Dawa party and a Kurdish judge taking revenge on Saddam," Cole said. "To the Sunnis it will look like just one more slap in the face.... This is the opposite of national healing and will just deepen the divisions."
Cole said he expected adverse Sunni reaction to the execution, noting that about 20 demonstrators were killed in Sunni-dominated Baqouba after Saddam's verdict was announced.
Even so, he agreed that the verdict's political significance will be limited.
"It won't change anything on the ground," he said.
Contributing: Associated Press