WIL Richards (You Say, Monday April 7) seems to believe that the nature of the Saddam Hussein regime is a point of contention between us. It is not.
Saddam just happened to be one of a long line of compliant dictators serving US interests.
His mistake in US eyes was not in being a brutal tyrant. It was in growing too big for his boots when his expansionist ambitions threatened US control of Middle East oil. Iraq lost half a million dead and billions of dollars in a war on behalf of the US against the Iranians, who had overthrown their US-sponsored dictator, the Shah of Iran.
Saddam thought that he was entitled to compensation for his services to American interests from Kuwait, another US supported dictatorship. When the Kuwaiti ruler turned him down, he invaded Kuwait. This posed a threat to Saudi Arabia, yet another dictatorship with whose totalitarian practices the Americans are perfectly comfortable. The "good"guy had become the "bad" guy.
To blame the UN for all this is the real "utter nonsense". The whole episode, including keeping Saddam in place after the Gulf War, was US-led at the UN and Wil Richards is ignoring the realpolitik that has driven this tragedy.
PETER NIELSEN, Worcester.
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