As Bush gets lift, Democrats laud capture

With the capture of Saddam Hussein, President Bush gained a potent political asset yesterday, sending his Democratic rivals scrambling to adapt their arguments about Iraq in response to the dramatic turn of events.

The arrest, the latest in a string of administration triumphs over the past few weeks, gives Bush a visible prize that could cement his public assertion eight months ago that the mission in Iraq had been accomplished. Following passage of a sweeping Medicare bill and signs that the economy is improving, the capture of Hussein complicated Democrats' attempts to show why Bush should be defeated next year.

Even vocal critics of the invasion -- most notably Democrat Howard Dean -- had no choice but to applaud the administration's success, a sign that the arrest transformed the political landscape quite literally overnight. Dean advisers rushed to rewrite a foreign policy speech scheduled for today, while other candidates rearranged their schedules to address the subject.

"I think President Bush deserves a day of celebration," Dean told reporters while campaigning in California. "We have our policy differences, but we won't be discussing them today." Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, however, continued his attacks on Bush's Iraq policy.

"Nothing has changed in this race" for the presidency in spite of Hussein's capture, Kerry said while campaigning in Iowa, arguing that "our troops are still overextended, our troops are still at risk."

"The president's foreign policy has been both reckless and ideological and unilateral, and I believe that still," Kerry said.

For Democrats who supported congressional resolutions that authorized the war -- Kerry and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut in particular -- the arrest offered a chance to revive their attacks on Dean for opposing it.

Kerry said Dean "didn't even know that it was good to get rid of Saddam Hussein," while Lieberman charged that "if Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a much more dangerous place."

Senator John Edwards of North Carolina and US Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri also voted to authorize the invasion, giving them what one Democratic strategist described as the right to "take part of the credit" for capturing Hussein.

"It's a big national event, and Howard Dean doesn't get to participate," said the strategist, who works for a rival Democratic candidate.

Since riding the antiwar wave to the front of the Democratic pack, however, Dean has been broadening his portfolio of issues. Last week, Dean complained that Iraq was dominating a debate in Durham, N.H., and he had been planning his foreign policy speech today to range significantly beyond Iraq.

For retired General Wesley K. Clark, the timing of the arrest was fitting: He is set to testify today at the International War Crimes tribunal in the Hague against accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, who was leader of the former Yugoslavia.

Clark dealt with Milosevic during the Dayton Peace Accords that settled the Bosnia conflict and headed NATO forces in the 1999 Kosovo bombing campaign that eventually led to Milosevic's ouster and arrest.

It is unclear whether Hussein will face a similar international tribunal, but Clark's trip overseas gave him a reason not to attack the administration on Iraq.

"I think that all candidates want the US mission in Iraq to succeed, and I don't want to see another American soldier injured there," Clark told reporters in a conference call. "But success in Iraq doesn't change the circumstances and judgments of the administration that took us into war. I don't intend to change my line of argumentation or adjust my concerns."

While strategists agree that Bush will enjoy a bounce in popularity in the short term, they also note that it is 11 months until Election Day -- a long time for good feeling over Hussein's capture to last. If attacks on US soldiers in Iraq continue, Bush could still suffer political problems at home, especially without having Hussein to blame for the continued violence, several Democrats said.

Aware of the potential perils, Bush campaign officials did not trumpet the arrest. Bush himself took care to appear somber and subdued in his comments from the Cabinet Room, in contrast to the upbeat tone he took during his controversial speech aboard an aircraft carrier earlier this year.

"The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq," Bush said in his brief remarks. "We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East. Such men are a direct threat to the American people, and they will be defeated."

Bush advisers are also aware that another terrorist attack on US soil could drastically alter the political landscape once more -- and Democrats are conscious, and concerned, about potential political fallout if weapons of mass destruction are discovered in Iraq or if Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is captured. Many Democrats have argued that bin Laden should be the main goal in the war to stop terrorism.

By the same token, a war crimes trial for Hussein before the election could have a significant effect on public opinion. While Democrats across the board have advocated conducting a trial (Lieberman yesterday called for Hussein's execution), damning evidence that Hussein ordered the mass murder of Iraqis would doubtlessly work in Bush's favor.

Bush himself did not mention politics yesterday. Senate majority leader Bill Frist, who spoke with Bush hours after Hussein was captured, said the president had explicitly put political talk aside during their conversation. Frist also suggested that Democrats would adjust their comments on Iraq to accommodate news of the arrest. "I'm sure they'll reposition," Frist said on Fox News. "It is a political season. I think that each of the candidates have positioned themselves in different ways, and they will just have to reposition as they go forward."

And indeed, across the campaign trail, signs of modulation began to appear. The muted rhetoric from Democrats, at least in the immediate aftermath of the arrest, suggested it may be even more difficult now for critics of the war to articulate their reasoning, as it was when some Democrats voted against the $87 billion resolution partly intended to pay the cost of rebuilding the country.

Campaigning in South Carolina, home of a major primary on Feb. 3, Gephardt hailed the arrest, but said the Bush administration "still needs to get the world to coalesce around the goal of bringing democracy and freedom" to Iraq.

Gephardt responded to news of the ousted dictator's capture by telling reporters: "It's a great day for our brave troops in Iraq, for the administration, and the American people, and most importantly for the people in Iraq." An earlier prepared statement issued by his campaign omitted the reference to "the administration."

Gephardt said he supported the war resolution "without regard to political consequences . . . because our highest responsibility is to keep our people safe." But he was highly critical of the Bush administration's foreign policy, which he called "a failure."

"He has not gotten us the help we need to fight this problem; he has isolated us in the world," Gephardt said.

"We still need to win the war against terrorism, and we need now to pull together the whole world to fight against this problem," he said. "You've got to deal not just with the symptoms of it. You've got to deal with the root cause."

Patrick Healy, Glen Johnson, Brian Mooney, and Joanna Weiss of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Anne E. Kornblut can be reached at kornblut@globe.com.