Just to be clear, I am agnostic about the merits of invading Iraq.
If Saddam ultimately would have been content to be a horrible dictator who only oppressed his own people, I would say our invasion was 100% a mistake.
However, judging by his past actions it's unlikely he would have remained....unproblematic from 2003 until now.
This is a person who was the first to use chemical weapons in a war since WW1 and killed thousands of Kurds with the same weapons. He invaded and attempted to annex a sovereign country, Kuwait, something even Kim Il Sung and Putin have not done yet (his Crimean adventure not withstanding.)
When his people attempted to overthrow him in 91-92, he responded in a way that made Assad look tame. I believe he killed half a million people and caused up to 4 million Iraqis to flee.
While there was no alliance between Al-Qaeda and Saddam, they both had diplomatic relations with each-other in a sense. Saddam even offered to give Bin Laden a haven in the 90s. Bin Laden rejected it do to Saddam's perceived "apostasy." True there was never any alliance, but there was strong potential for one, given that Saddam and Bin Laden both hated the same enemies: USA, Israel, and the Saudi Royal family.
As I stated earlier Saddam's regime was not nearly as secular as many people make it out to be.
He also hosted Ahmad Yasin (one of the terrorists behind '93 WTC bombing) and Zarqawi somehow mysteriously found his way into Baghdad.
Just to clarify, Im not asking if the Iraq war was justified. Just if the world is better without Saddam, and if in fact he posed a threat to USA of any kind?
If Saddam ultimately would have been content to be a horrible dictator who only oppressed his own people, I would say our invasion was 100% a mistake.
However, judging by his past actions it's unlikely he would have remained....unproblematic from 2003 until now.
This is a person who was the first to use chemical weapons in a war since WW1 and killed thousands of Kurds with the same weapons. He invaded and attempted to annex a sovereign country, Kuwait, something even Kim Il Sung and Putin have not done yet (his Crimean adventure not withstanding.)
When his people attempted to overthrow him in 91-92, he responded in a way that made Assad look tame. I believe he killed half a million people and caused up to 4 million Iraqis to flee.
While there was no alliance between Al-Qaeda and Saddam, they both had diplomatic relations with each-other in a sense. Saddam even offered to give Bin Laden a haven in the 90s. Bin Laden rejected it do to Saddam's perceived "apostasy." True there was never any alliance, but there was strong potential for one, given that Saddam and Bin Laden both hated the same enemies: USA, Israel, and the Saudi Royal family.
As I stated earlier Saddam's regime was not nearly as secular as many people make it out to be.
He also hosted Ahmad Yasin (one of the terrorists behind '93 WTC bombing) and Zarqawi somehow mysteriously found his way into Baghdad.
Just to clarify, Im not asking if the Iraq war was justified. Just if the world is better without Saddam, and if in fact he posed a threat to USA of any kind?
