You guys dont understand Middle East and muslim arabs. They are not like the rest. They certainly are not like the West or Israel. Take a dictator away from a South American or South East Asia country and most likely a new, better, democratic, modern, liberal, lawfull society will flourish. Take a dictator away from a Middle Eastern country and there will be a dozen different radical Islamist groups fighting each other for control and ruining the country, murdering everyone around.
Saddam, like Libya and Syria and etc is just a dictator progressive in comparison with the Islamists and outdated/backwarded compared to the West. Their "crimes" are purely their attempt to keep hold of their country, with the rules set by the regional standards which are very different from the West, because if they get deposed there wont be elections but the extremist animals that lurk in the shadows will take over and chaos will ensue, just like it happened with Iraq and Lybia and will happen to Syria, should Assad fall.
Following this line of reasoning, Middle Eastern dictators has done the same things that Western powers have done, to secure their nations superiority and sovereignty , they just played by different rules that came with the area and people. For example Saddam removing the Kurds was just business, same as Britain removed the Irish. They were both atrocities, one more subtle, the other more barbaric, but in the end the goals and the mindset behind both of those were the same.
Saddam, just like Assad, aside the corruption and the oppression that are a naturally occurring phenomena due to the culture and history of those places, serve/ed as a stabilizing force and under their rule education, standards of living, healthcare, freedom of speech/expression, employment etc were/are higher than any radical Islamist regime.
The rest is Western propaganda, evident by how the USA changed Saddam's status from terrorist to friend when they needed him in Iraq-Iran war, then switched sides when he invaded Kuwait because it suited their interests (when they said they wont interfere in arab-arab conflicts) and then proceeded to depose him using fake evidence and braking international laws.