Prior to the war the Iraqi people were being butchered and tortured by Saddam's government for over 30 years. Saddam had gassed the Kurds in the north, starved out and attacked with chemical weapons the Marsh Arabs in the south. He put to death close to -by some accounts-a million dissidents, and Shite Muslims that his government was oppressing filling thousands of mass graves with their dead bodies...many still being uncovered to this day. There was rampant unemployment. No free newspapers. Obviously no elections. Very little communications intrastructure. Saddam was bilking the oil-for-food program designed to limit the human factors of the imposed sanctions for his invasion of Kuwait. And there was simply no hope this tryanny would ever come to an end. There was prior to the war, and there still is the general understanding by the Iraq public that they now have an opportunity for a brighter future. A future determined by the people not by a genocidal despot.
