Err, no....
There was none of this religious warfare in Iraq when saddam was there..... Guess where ISIS are based now???? The trouble with the USA and the UK is that they always back the wrong side. The supposed "oppressed" people, are the rabble that WANT oppressing.... Iraq might not have been perfect under Saddam, but it was a sight better than it is now..
Saddam was a brilliant leader and set up the ONLY welfare system in the middle east, had mass literacy programmes set up, connected up electricity to just about ALL the outlying areas, [gave them all a fridge apparently]
Saddam modernised the country, and, unless you were a religious loony, was just great. He made Iraq into a secular country, no northern ireland style religious skirmishes there, he saw to that....
"Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.
At the centre of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On 1 June 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.
Within just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and controlled the "National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for "Compulsory Free Education in Iraq," and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels; hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program. The government also supported families of soldiers, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. Iraq created one of the most modernized public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation [UNESCO]"
The only thing wrong with the above, is, that as far as i know, the oil prices did not rise as a result of any "energy crisis" at all, but because Saddam nationalised the oil industry there, and then, in conjunction with other oil producing countries, just charged more for it!! [and thereby CREATING the OIL crisis [muppets did not witter on about "energy" in them days] to raise money to modernise Iraq and do the other great works i have mentioned....
So, there you are, Saddam was a brilliant leader and modernised the country, BUT if you were a nutter that wanted to drag it back to being a medieval dump like ISIS are creating, then Saddam would have you dealt with, and rightly so...
john..
