Well Barry let's hear your ringing endorsement for the rule of Saddam Hussein in that most cultured and educated of societies in the region, that made Iraq the pride of the middle-east. I suppose you have immigration statistics that support the vast number of people who during the reign of Saddam Hussein who were clamouring to live there. I know the number that left, sorry fled, the country was over 4.5 million, maybe they were just extremely hard to please eh?

Spell it all out for us Barry, then get an Iraqi Kurd, Madaan tribesman or Iraqi Shia Muslim's opinion on your take on things - Between that lot combined you have the major part of the Iraqi nation. My bet is that they would vehemently disagree with you.

I'll write the Foreword to kind of set the tone and provide a bit of background, I'll let you to carry on with the rest:

"THE WONDERFUL IRAQ OF SADDAM HUSSEIN" by Barry Finn

Foreword by Teribus

Iraq under Saddam Hussein had high levels of torture and mass murder. Secret police, torture, murders, deportations, forced disappearances, targeted assassinations, chemical weapons, and the destruction of wetlands (more specifically, the destruction of the food sources of rival groups) were some of the methods Saddam Hussein used to maintain control. The total number of deaths related to torture and murder during this period are unknown, as are the reports of human rights violations. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued regular reports of widespread imprisonment and torture.

Documented human rights violations 1979-2003;

Human rights organizations have documented government approved executions, acts of torture, and rape for decades since Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979 until his fall in 2003.

•        In 2002, a resolution sponsored by the European Union was adopted by the Commission for Human Rights, which stated that there had been no improvement in the human rights crisis in Iraq. The statement condemned President Saddam Hussein's government for its "systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law". The resolution demanded that Iraq immediately put an end to its "summary and arbitrary executions... the use of rape as a political tool and all enforced and involuntary disappearances".

•        Full political participation at the national level was restricted only to members of the Arab Ba'ath Party, which constituted only 8% of the population. Therefore, it was impossible for Iraqi citizens to change their government.

•        Iraqi citizens were not allowed to assemble legally unless it was to express support for the government. The Iraqi government controlled the establishment of political parties, regulated their internal affairs and monitored their activities.

•        Police checkpoints on Iraq's roads and highways prevented ordinary citizens from traveling abroad without government permission and expensive exit visas. Before traveling, an Iraqi citizen had to post collateral. Iraqi women could not travel outside of the country without the escort of a male relative.

•        The activities of citizens living inside Iraq who received money from relatives abroad were closely monitored.

•        Halabja poison gas attack:The Halabja poison gas attack occurred in the period 15 March–19 March 1988 during the Iran–Iraq War when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces and thousands civilians in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja were killed.

•        Al-Anfal Campaign: In 1988, the Hussein regime began a campaign of extermination against the Kurdish people living in Northern Iraq. This is known as the Anfal campaign. The campaign was mostly directed at Shiite kurds (Faili Kurds) who sided with Iranians during the Iraq-Iran War. The attacks resulted in the death of at least 50,000 (some reports estimate as many as 100,000 people), many of them women and children. A team of Human Rights Watch investigators determined, after analyzing eighteen tons of captured Iraqi documents, testing soil samples and carrying out interviews with more than 350 witnesses, that the attacks on the Kurdish people were characterized by gross violations of human rights, including mass executions and disappearances of many tens of thousands of noncombatants, widespread use of chemical weapons including Sarin, mustard gas and nerve agents that killed thousands, the arbitrary imprisoning of tens of thousands of women, children, and elderly people for months in conditions of extreme deprivation, forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers after the demolition of their homes, and the wholesale destruction of nearly two thousand villages along with their schools, mosques, farms, and power stations.

•        In April 1991, after Saddam lost control of Kuwait in the Gulf War, he cracked down ruthlessly against several uprisings in the Kurdish north and the Shia south. His forces committed wholesale massacres and other gross human rights violations against both groups similar to the violations mentioned before. Estimates of deaths during that time range from 20,000 to 100,000 for Kurds, and 60,000 to 130,000 for Shi'ites.

•        In June 1994, the Hussein regime in Iraq established severe penalties, including amputation, branding and the death penalty for criminal offenses such as theft, corruption, currency speculation and military desertion, while government members and Saddam's family members were immune from punishments ranging around these crimes.

•        On March 23, 2003, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Iraqi television presented and interviewed prisoners of war on TV, violating the Geneva Convention.

•        Also in April 2003, CNN revealed that it had withheld information about Iraq torturing journalists and Iraqi citizens in the 1990s. According to CNN's chief news executive, the channel had been concerned for the safety not only of its own staff, but also of Iraqi sources and informants, who could expect punishment for speaking freely to reporters. Also according to the executive, "other news organizations were in the same bind."

•        After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, several mass graves were found in Iraq containing several thousand bodies total, and more are being uncovered to this day[citation needed]. While most of the dead in the graves were believed to have died in the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein, some of them appeared to have died due to executions or died at times other than the 1991 rebellion.

•        Also after the invasion, numerous torture centers were found in security offices and police stations throughout Iraq. The equipment found at these centers typically included hooks for hanging people by the hands for beatings, devices for electric shock, and other equipment often found in nations with harsh security services and other authoritarian nations.

PS Barry I'll let you cover things like the Iran/Iraq War (1.5 million dead), that Saddam started and the introduction of quaint customs such a "Honour Killings" that he legalised.

Pride of the Middle-East - You have got to be joking!!