Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was the leader of Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war, the annexation of Kuwait, the 1st US invasion of Iraq (gulf war) and the 2nd US invasion of Iraq (the Iraq War). He has subsequently been tried and hung. As part of his legacy, Saddam Hussein had murdered 1 million of his own people, the kurdish minority race, although that was not the inspiration for either invasion or for his hanging. Saddam Hussein always spoke to his people about the evils of the US Empire, and argued to other arab leaders to unify. In this way, he agreed with Osama bin Laden, although they were from opposite ends of the moslem spectrum and hence disagreed. Whilst Saddam Hussein was a political leader and hence could not be a terrorist, he is regarded by some as sponsoring state-sponsored terrorism.

Saddam Hussein was democratically elected by the popular vote, although there are suggestions that each of the elections were rigged. He demanded that there were large posters of himself throughout Iraq, something that has been parodied on South Park and other shows. He is regarded in the USA as effectively a dictator, and USA has gone so far as to pretend that Iraq was not a democratic country.

As at when Iraq was first invaded by USA, Iraq was a member of the United Nations (whilst Kuwait was not) and Iraq was a democracy (whilst Kuwait was not), thus making USA's invasion illegal. Saddam Hussein went to pains to argue that in the UN, although ultimately the United Nations failed to stop the invasion, and went so far as to kick Iraq out of the United Nations, and welcome Kuwait in, following the war. The alliance that USA had with Iraq was also disbanded.

Saddam Hussein famously stated that he would not only defeat the US invaders, but he would then turn around and attack US on their own soil. He said that while their country was small, they had 1 million soldiers, all highly trained, with the best weapons available. This speech was televised worldwide. Many people felt that he could put up a good fight against the US invaders.

Unfortunately for Saddam Hussein and Iraq, he was not telling the truth. Of the few US soldiers that died during the conflict, the majority of them were killing by "friendly fire", by accidental shots by their own people. Iraq was decimated in a mismatch.

When asked to comment on 9/11, Saddam Hussein initially laughed and said "serves them right". He quickly retracted this statement after he discovered that he was named as a suspect. Many people see this as an admission of guilt on his part, or at least that he was happy that it happened. Saddam Hussein probably was happy that it happened, but wouldn't have been too happy when he saw that his country was taken over, he was deposed and executed. Undoubtedly, Saddam Hussein did not want that to happen.