1. When he was a nice guy.
2. When the US forced him to become a thug.
3. When we bought him.

To answer these points PDQ, see the links below for all the info you could want.

As for points 1 and 2, he was *always* a thug (see first link below). But he was a thug armed by the US, UK and other Western governments and financed by those governments' desire for cheap oil. Also the USSR as well.

Initially the British didn't care about him (he was just another tinpot dictator), but then he hadn't started massacring Iraqi civilians yet. In the 80s though, the US backed him because Iraq had gone to war with Iran, and Iran was considered the major enemy. So that's where 3 comes in. And all through the time the US and UK supported him, he was actively using his weapons of mass destruction (namely chemical weapons) on Kurdish and Shiite areas.

Daily Telegraph link
BBC timeline and Western support of Hussein

Basically, if he hadn't invaded Kuwait and thereby put everyone's oil supplies at risk, then I reckon he'd still have backing from the US and UK today.

Graham.