I imagine what George H would have been meaning by "Iraq is actually one of the most liberal and free of the Arab states, if you leave politics out of it" would have been stuff like, you don't get women stoned for not wearing traditional dress, or banned from going to school etc, and aside from the Sunni-Shi'ite quarrel there's a fair amount of religious toleration.

Which isn't to say it's not a tyrannical and murderous regime in a lot of ways. But one of the main things keeping Saddam in power is this kind of nonsense carried out by the US and its client regime in London.

Do you see that sad dictator, with his country broke and bust,
and his throne is feeling shaky, seems there's noone he can trust.
Then help comes falling from the sky, saved by the bombs once more -
for the cry is "No Surrender" when your country's Making War...

That's from another song I wrote at a time when Clinton appeared to be bombing Iraq as a way of distracting attention from his problems over Monica.