Why couldn't the Iraqi people have found a way to get rid of Saddam?

[kentuck]

They obviously know how to make bombs etc. They are very good at assassinations. There was a time once when a group tried to assassinate him but failed. He had them all executed. That is the main charge against him in his present trial. But, couldn't they have found a way to get rid of him if they really wanted to get rid of him? Were they really dependent on George W Bush and the US Army to get rid of him? I find that hard to believe.

[Redstone]

1. He had too much security. They'd NEVE have been able

to find him on any given day.

Redstone

[knowbody0]

2. it would have been kool for them to have stood up against

Saddam, and asked the UN to support them.

[Poppyseedman]

14. The UN was deep into taking Saddam's bribes

I seriously doubt they would have cut off their nose in spite of their face by supporting an internal attempt to overthrow Saddam.

[Selatius]

3. They most likely would have in time

If they were aided, they would have done so sooner, but we did the exact opposite. We bombed them for 12 years with our self-imposed no-fly zones and really didn't do much to remove the economic sanctions when it became apparent it was hurting civilians more than the regime itself. One estimate says 500,000 children died as a result of malnutrition due to the sanctions.

Tyrannies have a way of prolonging suffering until the very end. They may seem invincible for the longest time and can kill countless heroes who rise up to oppose them, but eventually, they will all fall sooner or later.

[rzemanfl]

4. We can't figure out a way to get rid of *. Why do you think they'd

be better at getting rid of their unelected leader than we are at getting rid of ours? The first time I felt a real sense of kinship with an Iraqi was when I saw one spitting at Saddam's image on his TV. Reminded me of my home...

[kentuck]

7. You make a good point.

But I would guess that Bush has more security and I did see pictures of Saddam out in the middle of a crowd.Most of Bush's crowds are still hand-picked...

[BuyingThyme]

5. Because Republicans gave Iraq's leaders chemical weapons and taught them

how to terrorize and torture innocent people.

[dailykoff]

12. Yup. Security apparatus 100% made in the USA.

We still make the best despots, but at least Saddam had sense enough to cut the leash.

[wellst0nev0ter]

6. Honest Question: What Would Prevent A Violent Bloodbath

from erupting as soon as there is a power vacuum?

[kenny blankenship]

8. They had boatloads of guns--rifles, pistols, machineguns

he made a fair number of public appearances during which he was very vulnerable to attack.

They may have hated him, but let's face the obvious: they hate us more. You can see that easily from how many Iraqis have been willing to die just for a chance to shoot at an American versus the longrunning, relative calm of the country under Saddam Hussein. If they had been this motivated to get rid of him, he wouldn't have lasted for long.

[leftofthedial]

9. they did

they attacked us on 9-11 and aided and abetted al qaeda and developed nukes and little drones that were gonna raise a mushroom cloud over Topeka and they had rape rooms and stuff

see, they knew that if they did all that, king george would get rid of saddam

no, really!

[kentuck]

11. Yes, they were brilliant! Now how do they get rid of Bush and the Repubs

Brilliant as they truly are, I'm sure they will find a way?

[ikojo]

10. Americans didn't get rid of Bush after one term

and we supposedly have far more freedoms than did those under Hussein. Until we do something about the Republicans how can we expect a people who have lived under war or the threat of war and then sanctions and almost daily bombings (yes the Clinton administration was also bombing Iraq) for over half my life to do anything to rid themselves of THEIR dictator?

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. What is fairly obvious is this

Saddam Hussein was fairly popular among the country's Sunnis, since he enforced what was essentially an apartheid state. Saddam's main atrocities are connected with such enforcement, and always with actual "threats" to Sunni hegemony coming from outside. Obviously, the Islamic revolution in Iran posed a major threat to Sunni hegemony in Iraq, since it provided an outside link for the Shia majority to exploit for their own hegemonic purposes. The various Kurdish factions were a nation on to their own, and our friendly, Western allies the Turks know well the problem of "international" Kurdish assertions to statehood, as do the Iranians. Hussein was no doubt a brutal tyrant, but probably at about the level of apartheid South African governments, and with the same border wars and security apparatus, etc. This is, of course, leaving out all the intimate business details, like the Shia leadership getting in bed with Saddam over oil money, etc., and towns like Basra, Nasiriyah, al-Qaim, and Najaf being bought and bribed to the gills by the Baathist state apparatus. Saddam Hussein wasn't overthrown because he had a mix of coercion AND consent of the "governed." The United States pretends that it was all coercion, all the time. Needless to say, no state can last even one week that way. This is the dirty secret of the Iraq War that few Americans want to face. Saddam wasn't overthrown - yes, because he was brutal and cagey - but ALSO because for the most part, most Iraqis either supported the Baathist system, or got on with their lives like most ordinary people do, and didn't think much about it.

[mike_c]

15. I don't think most Americans have the slightest clue...

...what forces were in play in Iraqi society or where Saddam Hussein's power came from. It's easy to call someone a "despotic dictator" but Saddam Hussein was not a two dimensional cardboard despot. The fact that Iraq is fracturing along widening sectarian divisions in his absence is evidence of that. The U.S. occupation is no less brutal than Saddam's regime-- quite a bit more so, actually, and yet it cannot prevent Iraq from flying apart. Saddam Hussein brought more to the table than simple brutality-- he understood the distrubution of power in Iraqi society, the distribution of respect, of obligation, and of loyalty. The Americans seek to supplant this understanding with the exercise of raw power, but we will fail.