How will History judge Saddam Hussein?

legal-eagle

I've been thinking about this for awhile now and I feel he was clearly a brutal Dictator but can't escape the fact Iraq will be in chaos for a thousand years because he's gone.

His iron fist control now looks like it was I dare say needed there. More have died since his removal than when he was leader. The facts of the invasion are that the USA and UK invaded over WMD that were never there which we all know, the civil wars, secterianism and bloodshed since have been appalling.

So I ask you was Iraq better off with or without Saddam? Is the middle East better off?

Say what you will but he had virtues he was a strong and brave Arab defender who didn't back down to the bully boys, and his invasion of Kuwait while somewhat hasty and rash was in actual fact alot more worthy than the 2003 conflict.

Firstly Iraq was deep in debt after the Iraq-Iran war (80-88) and he made a request to the Kuwaitis for money mainly because if Iraq lost the Islamic Iran would also take Kuwait, secondly the Rumallah oilfields although Kuwaiti were right on the border given him further cause for some oil revenue to rebuild. Thirdly the Kuwaitis knowing the had the backing of USA actually over-produced oil in '91 to spite Saddam by driving the price of oil down thus lowering his existing oil revenues. Lastly the Crown Prince of Kuwait actually said that Iraqis should send their Mothers and Daugthers on the street as prostitutes if they need money which was provacative in the extreme.

So lets here your views on him, also this interview is short but interesting in the pretext to 2003 invasion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64XR36zsIM&feature=related

Overheal

Hussein was a Brain Tumor: He Had to go, but there will be severe hemmoraging.

jimmycrackcorm

Germany has done fine since Hitler. He built great motorways.

legal-eagle

What about the good he did like empowering women or his abolishment of Sharia law and making Iraq the only Secular state in the Persian Gulf?

It's undeniable he did good aswell as bad.

digme

How about you learn history first and come back and ask the question again.The brits ruined that country, along with iran, palestine, and many more, including out own.

the_syco

Don't forget the thousands of his own people that he had killed, as well as the mass burial graves that are being uncovered every so often?

legal-eagle

How about I learn History? I'm very familiar with Iraqi history thank you very much. Thanks for your insightful contribution. Bye!

legal-eagle

the_syco wrote: »

Don't forget the thousands of his own people that he had killed, as well as the mass burial graves that are being uncovered every so often?

But many more have died since 2003 than during his reign. That is common knowledge.

digme

Saddam didn't get huge loans and or leave in the corporate swine to suck his country dry when he couldn't repay those huge loans they wanted to give him.He stuck to his guns,changed to the euro,and got invaded.

In November 2000, Iraq began selling its oil in euros

Overheal

legal-eagle wrote: »

What about the good he did like empowering women or his abolishment of Sharia law and making Iraq the only Secular state in the Persian Gulf?

It's undeniable he did good aswell as bad.

If you want to list some of his accomplishments, please go ahead.

legal-eagle wrote: »

But many more have died since 2003 than during his reign. That is common knowledge.

I beg to differ: its news to me, if you want to provide sources and counts; preferably separate to just civilian casualties.

ascanbe

Iraq, as we know it, probably won't exist in a thousand years time; there's a good possibility that no state we now recognise will.
Unless people learn from our and our predecessors mistakes, though, you can be sure there'll be plenty of chaos.
Perhaps there's nothing to learn; perhaps chaos is the natural state of people's interaction with one another.
I'd like to think things can improve, incrementally; that progress in human affairs can mature much like our knowledge of the world around us has improved through science.
Or, at least, that people will get closer to taking a rational approach towards dealing with one another.
If we continue to blindly follow the ego's of our 'leaders' then, of course, nothing will change; again, maybe this is just an immutable truth of humanity.

ascanbe

Overheal wrote: »

If you want to list some of his accomplishments, please go ahead.
I beg to differ: its news to me, if you want to provide sources and counts; preferably separate to just civilian casualties.

If you're arguing with this poster as pre-text to making a rational defense of the Iraq war, your next few posts should be interesting/amusing.

west101

digme wrote: »

Saddam didn't get huge loans and or leave in the corporate swine to suck his country dry when he couldn't repay those huge loans they wanted to give him.He stuck to his guns,changed to the euro,and got invaded.

One of the reasons saddam invaded Kuwait was that Iraq couldnt afford to repay the loans they got from Kuwait during the Iran War.

Overheal

ascanbe wrote: »

If you're arguing with this poster as pre-text to making a rational defense of the Iraq war, your next few posts should be interesting/amusing.

Actually for a change I was just academically interested in hearing the information. Grant you I still think it was necessary to remove him, but I'm interested to hear what good, if any, Hussein generated.

defense of the Iraq war

You probably dont know me as well as you think you do

edit: to expand on 'necessary removal' - we were already there for whatever cooked up reason/farce. Beyond that, once it was done and he was overthrown and arrested personally [By a Soldier who could trace his family lineage generation or two back to Ennistymon no less] you couldn't help but appreciate that it was for the best; because Im not exactly sure what good would have come from the future efforts of Hussein.

Scofflaw

Usual warning - stay on topic, please, don't personalise the discussion, and refrain from flipping other posters off if you can.

moderately,
Scofflaw

ascanbe

Overheal wrote: »

Actually for a change I was just academically interested in hearing the information. Grant you I still think it was necessary to remove him, but I'm interested to hear what good, if any, Hussein generated.You probably dont know me as well as you think you do

You're right. I don't know you at all or your posting form on here.
I just jumped to a conclusion; in retrospect that was silly.
As for Saddam Hussein, i don't think the man would understand the concept of doing good.
But that doesn't mean that those who elected to move against him at a particular juncture in history are much better.
Their claims for acting as they did ring hollow, to put it mildly; i believe he would have been removed in short order, anyway, through an internal uprising. Perhaps i'm wrong.
However the supposed humanitarian/world security motivations used by Bush/Blair were laughable, not to mention patently dishonest.
They go against the concept of how i believe people in power should act; but even if i lived by the concept of realpolitik, i don't understand how anyone could argue they were correct.

Overheal

But that doesn't mean that those who elected to move against him at a particular juncture in history are much better.

Indeed. The real question the OP is dancing around but needs to be asked, is who did more damage: the United States, or Saddam Hussein?

Its a fascinating and academic Gray Area in modern history, so I definitely appreciate the Thread.

ascanbe

Overheal wrote: »

Indeed. The real question the OP is dancing around but needs to be asked, is who did more damage: the United States, or Saddam Hussein?

Its a fascinating and academic Gray Area in modern history, so I definitely appreciate the Thread.

Yeah. It's a worthwhile thread, i suppose.
I just can't imagine either of the purported opponents emerging with much credit.

ynotdu

The US supported Iran until the Shah was toppled,when the Iran/Iraq war started the US then took the side of Saddam.
Saddams powerbase was the minority Muslim religion in Iraq,when he got power he became corrupted..........when he got absolute power he got corrupted absolutely:(

Tito kept an unnatural state alive by power of personality and fear,Yugoslavia like Afghanistan were ungovernable without dictators IMO.

My point is as i found in a long running thread about Israel and Hamas that to get the full picture of villians and hero's of history requires deep research before jumping to conclusions.(we had to go back to 800 BC:eek: on middle east!)
Saddam was an evil man but the people who executed him lost any 'moral high ground'they had by doing so,in fact he was just about the only one who showed some dignity at the 'show'
people who claim god is on their side but are prepared to execute another human being{i'm agnostic,but i do know 1 of 10 commandments are 'thou shall not kill'} are worse than the any psycho who knows no better.

Fratton Fred

Saddam and his removal will go down as part of the learning curve that is the human race.

It was right that he went but he should have been removed after gulf war one, there would have been fewer problems afterwards.

The current Chilcott enquiry makes interesting reading, my opinion of Tony Blair has changed enormously. (I used to like him).

RedPlanet

The important question is: Who's History?
If it's the history we all study then doubtless future generations will learn the Saddam was this horrible butcher that kept is people oppressed while they yearned for "freedom". After he threatened to blow up Britain with biological and chemical weaopons, the brave "Coalition of the Willing" just had to act. :rolleyes:

getz

legal-eagle wrote: »

But many more have died since 2003 than during his reign. That is common knowledge.

you are very wrong saddam hussein was the cause of more muslim deaths than any other muslim leader in history,as anyone from iran who was around during the iraq/iran war will tell you,it is estimated over one million people died in that war,

Time Magazine

legal-eagle wrote: »

I've been thinking about this for awhile now and I feel he was clearly a brutal Dictator but can't escape the fact Iraq will be in chaos for a thousand years because he's gone.

That's not a fact.

digme wrote: »

Saddam didn't get huge loans and or leave in the corporate swine to suck his country dry when he couldn't repay those huge loans they wanted to give him.He stuck to his guns,changed to the euro,and got invaded.

Trading oil in euro makes no difference. It's the oil that's valuable, not the paper you use to trade it with.

RedPlanet wrote: »

The important question is: Who's History?

He's an academic in UCC afaik.

Dannyboy83

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Saddam and his removal will go down as part of the learning curve that is the human race.

It was right that he went but he should have been removed after gulf war one, there would have been fewer problems afterwards.

The current Chilcott enquiry makes interesting reading, my opinion of Tony Blair has changed enormously. (I used to like him).

Why? What changed?
Or what was the new information that made you reconsider?

wes

He'll be judged badly. He buthered his own people, and launched a war of aggression against Iran (back by the West btw), which resulted in a million deaths, being just one among his many atocities.

Fratton Fred

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Why? What changed?
Or what was the new information that made you reconsider?

I originally though Tony Blair believed the WMD reports and was, to an extent, duped by the CIA into the war, which, incidentally I supported.

The analysis I heard this morning summed up what changed for me, it seems Tony Blair may have been on a bit of an egotistical moral crusade and only used WMD to back up desires.

I don't think he is the warmonger people believe him to be, but I think he wanted to be the saviour of the Iraqi people (Iraqis by the way were the largest group of asylum seekers in the UK) just like he did in Northern Ireland. I don't think for one moment anyone considered the that there would be anything other than dancing in the streets when the coalition entered Baghdad.

getz

and lets not forget the kurds, over one million made homeless and 25,000 killed as a result of chemical-weapon attacks by iraq, in 1984-1989, and in 1991 more than one million were forced to flee their homes in n-iraq because they are predominantly sunni muslims,

Fratton Fred

RedPlanet wrote: »

The important question is: Who's History?
If it's the history we all study then doubtless future generations will learn the Saddam was this horrible butcher that kept is people oppressed while they yearned for "freedom". After he threatened to blow up Britain with biological and chemical weaopons, the brave "Coalition of the Willing" just had to act. :rolleyes:

That adds nothing to the debate tbh. How many people are taught that Vietnam was the US and Australia defending the free world? I fully expect the invasion of Iraq to be remembered the same way.

Nodin

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I originally though Tony Blair believed the WMD reports and was, to an extent, duped by the CIA into the war, which, incidentally I supported.
.

In a way that gave him both too much and too little credit......

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

(my bold and underline)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

Fratton Fred

Nodin wrote: »

In a way that gave him both too much and too little credit......

(my bold and underline)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

In what way?

I firmly believe Iraq was going to be invaded by the way, with or without the UK, Spanish and Australians. I also think France and Germany didn't help by openly announcing their veto on military action so early in the process. As soon as they did that, they backed the US into a position that it was never going to step away from.

pablomakaveli

I think Saddam had to be removed and i'm sure history will always look at it that way but the way it was done was not the best way.

It always seemed to me that Bush was more interested in finishing his fathers business in iraq rather than actually wanting to help the Iraqis. The Americans did'nt plan well enough for the aftermath and seemed to naively think the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms and embrace democracy with no problems.

Id say it will be a decade or two before Iraq recovers fully from the invasion.

Nodin

It credits him in that it makes him a dupe as oppossed to an accomplice, it discredits him in that it implies he couldn't see through the Americans.

Fratton Fred wrote:

As soon as they did that, they backed the US into a position that it was never going to step away from.

The US had decided to invade Iraq early. It was quite clear throughout that others were at best peripheral to considerations.

RedPlanet

Originally Posted by Fratton Fred
As soon as they did that, they backed the US into a position that it was never going to step away from.

How should a responsible party act when the threat of an illegal invasion looms?
If anything, they should have tried harder to prevent it.

Other countries do not have the right to arbitrarily change the government of another nation. The US and UK have greatly damaged International Law as well as Human Rights charters.

Iraq will never "recover", it will inevitably splinter into semi-independent or fully independt states along ethnic and religious lines. Just like former Yugoslavia.

Fratton Fred

RedPlanet wrote: »

How should a responsible party act when the threat of an illegal invasion looms?
If anything, they should have tried harder to prevent it.

Other countries do not have the right to arbitrarily change the government of another nation. The US and UK have greatly damaged International Law as well as Human Rights charters.

Iraq will never "recover", it will inevitably splinter into semi-independent or fully independt states along ethnic and religious lines. Just like former Yugoslavia.

The threat of military action is the ultimate weapon the UN has to force a state to comply with it's resolutions, remove this and people like Saddam will just ignore anything they say or do.

Have the former Yugoslav countries not recovered then? They look to be at least "getting there".

Fratton Fred

Nodin wrote: »

It credits him in that it makes him a dupe as oppossed to an accomplice, it discredits him in that it implies he couldn't see through the Americans.

The US had decided to invade Iraq early. It was quite clear throughout that others were at best peripheral to considerations.

That is pretty much how I saw it originally. The invasion was inevitable, the war wasn't. If Saddam had been forced by the UN to step down the war would have been avoided, but the UN would still have ended up in Iraq doing the same role they are currently.

RedPlanet

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Have the former Yugoslav countries not recovered then? They look to be at least "getting there".

The republics of the former Yugoslavia were a lot better off that Iraqis in terms of economy, health, education and any other measure.
Also, they automatically benefit by their proximity to the EU.

Iraq on the other hand, is basically a desert with a single natural resource.
The people have been crippled by sanctions for 10 years previous.
Surrounded by either hostile neighbours or other poor countries.
Jordan alone has taken around 1 million Iraqi refugees.
It's got a long, long road to recovery.
So long infact that i'm not even sure if light can pierce the tunnel.

Ping Chow Chi

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That is pretty much how I saw it originally. The invasion was inevitable, the war wasn't. If Saddam had been forced by the UN to step down the war would have been avoided, but the UN would still have ended up in Iraq doing the same role they are currently.

UN forcing a head of state to step down? which resolution was that? are they even allowed to do that?

ednwireland

dont forget iraq's boundaries were drawn as straight lines on a map after the first world war protecting britains oil interests, this has more to do with the factional infighting now than anything else, it would have happened sooner or later, the only problem now is the USA trying to protect oil interests.

Fratton Fred

That's it then. After WWI the allies should have left it under the Ottoman empire and everything would be grand.

This has gone off topic, it is about how Saddam will be remembered, not a US/UK bitchfest.

Liam Byrne

Time Magazine wrote: »

Trading oil in euro makes no difference. It's the oil that's valuable, not the paper you use to trade it with.

Untrue.

The fact that you have to convert to dollars in order to purchase oil makes the dollar exchange rate a lot better than it otherwise would be.

That's primarily what the U.S. Administration objected to.

Combine that with Daddy Bush's unfinished business, and you end up with the one-tracked warmonger that caused the war.

Hussein was definitely a thug, but in lots of ways he was no worse than Bush - both did loads of seriously unacceptable things and caused thousands of unnecessary deaths in order to further their own agendas.

If anything, history will look a little more kindly on Hussein than it probably should, because of the approach that America took.

digme

Time Magazine wrote: »

That's not a fact.

Trading oil in euro makes no difference. It's the oil that's valuable, not the paper you use to trade it with.

He's an academic in UCC afaik.

Dumping the dollar for the euro virtually guarantees that Iran will now be attacked by Israel or the U.S. or both, acting on behalf of the banking cartel whose bidding they carry out. That's what Saddam Hussein did and look what happened. You can do almost anything you want, but if you threaten the dollar's status as the global reserve currency you're toast.

digme

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That adds nothing to the debate tbh. How many people are taught that Vietnam was the US and Australia defending the free world? I fully expect the invasion of Iraq to be remembered the same way.

Wait for oliver stones new film!

digme

pablomakaveli wrote: »

I think Saddam had to be removed and i'm sure history will always look at it that way but the way it was done was not the best way.

It always seemed to me that Bush was more interested in finishing his fathers business in iraq rather than actually wanting to help the Iraqis. The Americans did'nt plan well enough for the aftermath and seemed to naively think the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms and embrace democracy with no problems.

Id say it will be a decade or two before Iraq recovers fully from the invasion.

How you can say it was right is hilarious.Care to explain why you think that?
And while your thinking please remember other countries track records.

pablomakaveli

digme wrote: »

How you can say it was right is hilarious.Care to explain why you think that?
And while your thinking please remember other countries track records.

I never said the way they did it was right. I said Saddam needed to be removed and he did need to be removed. The many people who were killed under his regime would pretty much justify his removal. Unless you think he should have been left to carry on as he pleased.

digme

pablomakaveli wrote: »

I never said the way they did it was right. I said Saddam needed to be removed and he did need to be removed. The many people who were killed under his regime would pretty much justify his removal. Unless you think he should have been left to carry on as he pleased.

Who should of removed him?
You say that very lightly, you can't just march into someone else's country and shoot him in the face can you or actually you can if your american,Jaime Roldós Aguilera ring a bell?
So who gets to remove sadam?

pablomakaveli

digme wrote: »

Who should of removed him?

Ideally the Iraqi people themselves with support from the UN. Even if the Americans had planned for the aftermath of the invasion better than they stability may have been restored far sooner.

digme

Let me ask you this.How does America get other countries to vote for or against a resolution?Who do you think controls the UN?Why is it they had to depart from the UN, and have no other choice but to invade Iraq.Use your head man,it's all corrupt.They have been blowing up presidents for a past time.

pablomakaveli

digme wrote: »

Let me ask you this.How does America get other countries to vote for or against a resolution?Who do you think controls the UN?Why is it they had to depart from the UN, and have no other choice but to invade Iraq.Use your head man,it's all corrupt.They have been blowing up presidents for a past time.

So basically you're saying Saddam Hussein should have been left in power. Do you have a better solution to how he could have been removed?

I'd like you to answer the this question rather than tell me how big bad america controls the world. (And remember i said earlier i didnt agree with how america and their allies ended up removing Saddam)

He was a despot, he could'nt be left in power. Plain and simple.

RedPlanet

pablomakaveli wrote: »

He was a despot, he could'nt be left in power. Plain and simple.

But it's not plain and simple. The US is perfectly happy to buddy-up with other despots. General Suharto of Indonesia for example, far more deaths attributed to him, as well as annexing a peaceful neighbour.

Look at how much hay they make over Hugo Chavez, but compare his rule with Uribe in Colombia.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3699
Far, far worse human rights record from his regime.
Similarly changing the constitution to remain in power.

It's all a big game of power for the US. Human Rights don't even come into it.

digme

pablomakaveli wrote: »

So basically you're saying Saddam Hussein should have been left in power. Do you have a better solution to how he could have been removed?

I'd like you to answer the this question rather than tell me how big bad america controls the world. (And remember i said earlier i didnt agree with how america and their allies ended up removing Saddam)

He was a despot, he could'nt be left in power. Plain and simple.

I'm responding to your words,remember?
So you skipped my questions and now your trying to put questions to me.Alright you say he couldn't be left in power,plain and simple,so why is it certain brutal leaders are allowed and not others?I'm asking you question as i want you to learn what is really going on.What about saudi arabia?Do you know why they are untouchable?Are you aware of opec and how that was founded?Are you aware of how sauid arabia was transformed?

Read this and do your own research you will be glad you did.The way you understand it now it's all wrong.

Royal House of Saud agreed to send most of their petro-dollars back to the United States and invest them in U.S. government securities. The Treasury Department would use the interest from these securities to hire U.S. companies to build Saudi Arabia–new cities, new infrastructure–which we’ve done. And the House of Saud would agree to maintain the price of oil within acceptable limits to us, which they’ve done all of these years, and we would agree to keep the House of Saud in power as long as they did this, which we’ve done, which is one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place. And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn't buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn't work, they perform assassinations. or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren't able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had -- His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.

pablomakaveli

RedPlanet wrote: »

But it's not plain and simple. The US is perfectly happy to buddy-up with other despots. General Suharto of Indonesia for example, far more deaths attributed to him, as well as annexing a peaceful neighbour.

Look at how much hay they make over Hugo Chavez, but compare his rule with Uribe in Colombia.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3699
Far, far worse human rights record from his regime.
Similarly changing the constitution to remain in power.

It's all a big game of power for the US. Human Rights don't even come into it.

But Saddam Hussein was a despot and needed to be removed. Americas relations with other dictators does'nt change that.

I don't support all the US's actions and i never said i did either.