He was useful at one point in time, I think the way it went down was basically we supported a new ruler in iran, the sha, then the ayatollahs came into power (or are they called the mullahs?) kicked the sha out (he lives in new york) and then kicked us out. At that time, iran was our strangehold in the middle east, much like iraq is today. Saddam at that time was invading iran, or something to that effect, and going with the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach, we got cozy with saddam. When he invaded kuwait, he actually asked us, and we basically said we have no say in what he does, then for some reason, I forget why right now (its 6 am) we decided it WASN'T a good thing that he was doing so we sent troops over there to stop him. We basically lied to him, and stabbed him in the back, which im sure was a catalyst for his actions against us in recent years. I feel very strongly that WE CREATED the sadistic, america hating saddam of the 90's and early 2000's. I don't think we exactly did it on purpose, but lets just say we aren't innocent either.