I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when the British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas.
It was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
That was one of the great successes of removing Saddam Hussein, as we took Iraq out of the picture of having a sovereign nation from which the terrorists could operate. But this war has not gone perfectly.
There is an old saying that all roads lead to Rome. It seems the administration so often clearly believes that no matter what the evidence was at any particular time, essentially everything led to Saddam Hussein.
We have defeated Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The good news is Iraq is ours, and the bad news is Iraq is ours.
It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
I think one can easily make a case for taking out Saddam Hussein. In fact, one could probably be made on humanitarian grounds alone. But just as there’s a downside risk to doing nothing about this man, there is a very serious downside risk to invading the country.
You know the most important thing the Americans did for Iraq apart from liberating the country from Saddam was helping Iraq reduce its debt. The United States worked very hard to reduce 80 percent of Iraqi debt.
The Chavez-Obama pictures will join a postmodern photo array that includes Donald Rumsfeld gifting Saddam Hussein with spurs from President Reagan.
Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant. I am glad he is now on trial for crimes against humanity. But, opposition to a dictator is not the measure I use when deciding whether to send our men and women in uniform off to war and possible death.
We foolishly did not realize Saddam was stupid.
The U.S. couldn’t even get rid of Saddam Hussein. And we all know that the EU is just a passing fad. They’ll be killing each other again in less than a year. I’m sick to death of all these fascist lawsuits.
I may find Saddam Hussein’s regime abhorrent – any normal person would – but the survival of it is in his hands.
But, as you have intimated, I am among those who would be very wary of any military action in the light of Saddam Hussein’s willingness to allow the weapons inspectors to go in.
The Iraqi people are suffering just as if they were still under Saddam.
George W. Bush and Tony Blair had to convince the world that Saddam Hussein represented an imminent threat. Tony Blair lied when he claimed that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes.
New rumors that Saddam Hussein is planning to flee to a castle in Libya with 10 billion dollars. Now President Bush doesn’t know whether to nuke him or give him a tax cut.
For instance, I was a little surprised that the Shiites didn’t rise up against Saddam and the Baath party across most of the country when the Americans moved in March and April of 2003.
As soon as, say, Saddam Hussein started bombing Israel with Scuds, everyone was like, ‘Poor Israel.’ But when Israel retaliates – and most of the time they then win – people turn against them.
In my own mind, it is profoundly disappointing to see what has occurred in Iraq given the sacrifice of our troops, given our commitment to removing Saddam Hussein and putting in place a fledgling government that would have a chance for a stable, secure Iraq.
Howard Dean is not the first politician to distort facts in his own interests. But many activists in the party he now leads are puzzled over what he thinks he is accomplishing politically. Is it good politics to contend that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein than even a flawed Islamic republic?
The purpose of the UN mechanism, this inspection mechanism, is not to engage in a cat and mouse game with Saddam Hussein and try to find weapons that the Iraqi government is working on concealing.
Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.
Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.
There’s a certain amount of sympathy here for the Bush administration’s problem, which is they would like to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they would like to have the Kurds autonomous.
Colin Powell has said over the years that Saddam Hussein is like a toothache. It recurs from time to time, and you just have to live with it. At other times, he’s compared Saddam Hussein to a kidney stone that will eventually pass. But he has never said, ‘You have to operate and take out the kidney stone.’
Just because we’re rid of Saddam and the evil Batthists doesn’t mean the occupation is a good thing. Our salvation from Saddam was only with the grace of God.
Saddam Hussein was a horrible man, and I am pleased he is no longer running Iraq. But the war was wrong.
I don’t know if, at the end of the day, how brave Saddam Hussein would be if he were stripped of his bodyguards and everything else.
Saddam Hussein was fascinated by ancient Babylon and Assyria. He made money available to protect and develop the great archaeological sites. The great achievements of Mesopotamian civilisation were pressed into the service of the Ba’athist regime.
Saddam Hussein wrote the book on human rights violations.
Women, who enjoyed a high social status and levels of education under Saddam, saw terrible setbacks as Iraq fell into civil war. As a result of the sectarian violence from 2005-2007, women retreated to their homes and fell from public view.
There are many countries who have traditionally sponsored terrorism. Iraq is one, though it appears the majority of the terrorism committed by Saddam Hussein is on his own citizens. Iran in this regard. Syria, with their close support of Hezbollah, is noteworthy in this respect.
My position is that it isn’t government’s job to mandate patriotism. To me, mandating a pledge of allegiance to a government is something Saddam Hussein would do.
We made them drink poison last night and Saddam Hussein’s soldiers and his great forces gave the Americans a lesson which will not be forgotten by history. Truly.
Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal dictator who had attacked Iraq’s neighbours, repressed and killed many of his own people, and was in violation of obligations imposed by the U.N. Security Council.
Saddam, as most tyrants, was a total control freak. He wanted total control of his regime. Total control of the country. And to introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do.
Whatever one wants to say about the conduct of the Iraq War, going to war to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003 was a necessary act. It should and could have been done earlier, had not the Clinton White House, which understood the need, not wasted the opportunity through timidity and bluster.
Saddam Hussein has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do.
To the contrary, I believe the U.S. military has already done all that has been asked of them. Saddam Hussein is on trial. The threat from alleged weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq has been neutralized.
The Americans stabbed in the back the forces that worked to bring about the collapse of Saddam’s regime and wanted to keep Iraq a sovereign country.
We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.
Although combat operations unseated the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein regime, a poor understanding of the recent histories of the Afghan and Iraqi peoples undermined efforts to consolidate early battlefield gains into lasting security.
Saddam was a bastard, but he was our bastard.
Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is… everyone now accepts that if there is a default by Saddam the international community must act to enforce its will.
We are safer, the region is safer, the world is safer without Saddam.
