Correct, Peter. Huge numbers of Iraqis were dying unnecessarily a long time ago, ever since the Iran-Iraq war in the 80's, and you can place the blame for that squarely upon both Saddam AND his British and American backers. First they armed him to fight Iran. They gave him chemical weapons which he used on Iranians and Kurds. He fought Iran uselessly for 8 years and killed a tremendous number of people. Having failed to destroy Iran, Saddam started becoming a liability, so they suckered him into thinking they would do absolutely nothing if he invaded Kuwait, and when he did invade Kuwait, then they smashed up his army and massacred about a hundred thousand Iraqi soldiers, and bombed his country. They also encouraged the Shiites to rise in a revolt and then did nothing to help them, and Saddam slaughtered the Shiites. They then put sanctinos on Iraq for over 10 years which caused the deaths of hundreds thousands more Iraqis and the ruination of the country. They also continued bombing Iraq off and on throughout that period. They finally delivered the coup de grace in the recent war, wrecking most of what remained in that country. Its national museums were pillaged of priceless artifacts from one of the most ancient civilizations on Earth. One wonders who got those artifacts? I bet a lot of them are in London and Washington now, but not out for public display anywhere, needless to say.

Saddam is to blame...as a former hired man of the USA and Britain. The USA and Britain are to blame as those who hired him and armed him and those who later used him as their pet boogyman to invade a country which had done nothing whatsoever to them, but had a whole lot of oil.

I wouldn't be all that surprised if Saddam was going insane, given his general circumstances. Nor would I be all that surprised if it was just a phony story made up to keep him from going to trial or to discredit what he might say at that trial. He could name names and cause a whole lot of trouble, after all.