He was American creation to fight communists in Iraq. He also did tons of awful shit like war with Iran and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. That said, He was nowhere near as bad as what US did to Iraq in even 1st war and its aftermatch, not to mention the 2nd one (idk how many combined death the wars, sanctions and unrest caused but it's in the millions). Also note that he did his worst with the support of USA, he only went into their hit list when he started to oppose them and the last straw that caused invasion was trying to infringe on the petrodollar.

Even in 1990 and 2003 when i was still succdem i was still 100% Yankee hands off Iraq.