Orlando, Fla. ? Mazin Yousef joined his fellow exiles and Iraqi-Americans in rejoicing at Tuesday’s startling news that the powerful and vicious sons of Saddam Hussein had been killed by U.S. troops in Mosul.

“If we were playing a chess game, this would mean we are one step closer to taking the final pawn on the table,” Yousef said. “It will definitely weaken the resolve of Saddam and the people around him.”

The deaths of Qusai Saddam Hussein, 37, and Odai Saddam Hussein, 39, who were even more widely feared than their father by many Iraqis, were seen as an overwhelmingly positive sign by those who fled the now-deposed dictatorial regime. The brothers died in a blaze of gunfire and rockets Tuesday when U.S. forces, acting on a tip from an Iraqi informant, stormed a palatial villa in northern Iraq.

Political and military analysts also viewed the brothers’ deaths as a major victory that, at least temporarily, will put an end to pessimistic projections that the United States and its allies have stepped into a “quagmire” occupation of an increasingly hostile and dangerous nation.

Yousef, the Iraqi National Congress representative who now lives in southern California but is moving back to Iraq soon, said he wished only that the murderous brothers had been taken alive so he could have attended their war crime trials.

His desire for personal resolution traces back to high school, when Yousef watched one of the brothers’ bodyguards mercilessly beat his soccer teammate with a rifle butt because he’d kicked a ball away from Odai Hussein.

“It is unfortunate that they died instead of (being) captured and tried,” he said. “They were schoolmates of mine in Baghdad and they were ruthless. There was a lot of blood on their hands.”

Wide implications

The deaths of the dictator’s sons have implications far beyond the personal vengeance of those they terrorized, noted Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

” It is positive in every respect, from nation building to security in Iraq to U.S. and British strategic goals,” the Washington-based analyst said. “The (positive) impact on U.S. moral also goes without saying.

“For many people who were warning that things were degenerating and that the U.S. was losing a guerrilla war, this will give them a little pause.”

Cordesman noted that bringing down Saddam’s sons and other top-ranking survivors of his regime “sends the message that the United States can strike at virtually anyone, and that is a message to the Baath Party about the low probability of their surviving or coming back to power.”

That message of U.S. resolve and military power also will be heard by those Iraqis who might have been afraid to join in the rebuilding of their nation, and by those who might have entered the guerrilla war against American troops in Iraq, he added.

“You may naturally see revenge attempts and people lashing out,” Cordesman said. “But even if that happens the overwhelming message to Saddam’s supporters is that this is the time for them to seek shelter or to strike a deal to get out of the country.”

More stumbling blocks

But Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, questioned whether the slaying of the brothers, who were “the most brutal face of the regime,” will greatly affect U.S. efforts to stabilize and rebuild Iraq.

“Obviously the failure to completely eradicate any trace of the regime was a stumbling block — but hardly the only one,” Brown said. “There is so much to do there politically and economically. This may boost morale, but doesn’t fundamentally change the size of the task.”

Nor will his sons’ deaths likely prompt Saddam to give up, if he is still alive. “It’s a big blow but, at this point, it is not like he can open negotiations to surrender,” the professor said.

Even critics of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq conceded that the deaths of Saddam’s sons would be welcomed by the people they tyrannized and preyed upon.

“But that does not mean they are happy that the U.S. killed them while occupying their country,” said Phyllis Bennis, an Iraq expert at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.

“To go gunning for political leaders is a violation of international law after hostilities end,” she said. “They should have been arrested and brought to trial. Assassination is not an acceptable outcome — even for people as odious as them or their father.”

Bennis’ sentiments were not widely shared in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Mich., home of the largest concentration of Iraqi exiles in the nation.

“The word for today is ‘joy,”‘ said sign maker Haitham Sitto, 34.

Sitto’s father, Nouri, fled Iraq with his family 27 years ago, established a successful sign making-business and founded the Iraqi Democratic Union in Dearborn.

A few weeks ago, Nouri Sitto returned to Iraq to help rebuild his native country. His son was trying to reach him by satellite phone Tuesday, to verify early reports that Saddam’s sons had been killed.

“My wife called me because her mother had called her while watching the news on Al-Jazeera. She was quite excited and she wanted to know if I thought it was for real,” Haitham Sitto said.

For his own strategic reasons, he too wished that the infamous brothers had been captured alive, Sitto offered.

“My only concern is that they might have missed the opportunity to get Saddam by using the sons as bait.”