Is Iraq better now than before the first Gulf War?

The argument that keeps getting raised by the pro-war crowd is that the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam. While that is debatable with the ineptness that the US has executed this war, I am wondering how the Iraqi people fared before the US got involved? First we had the Iran-Iraq war, where the US was playing up, one side against the other, including giving Saddam the chemicl weapons that we are reminded of ad nauseum. Then you had the leadup to the Gulf War, which was basically instigated by George Bush in collusion with the Kuwaitis. But when you take the combined effect of the first Gulf War, the sanctions that followed it, and the most recent war, I think that we have done far more damage to the Iraqi people than Saddam could have ever done.

And even when they are only wounded, or their wives and daughters are taken away for "interrogation" and their children's feet are blown off, at least it is being done by real patriotic Americans and not scurrilous Muslims.

I went to a lecture given by a member of Voices in the Wilderness who had spent quite some time in Iraq.

Yeah, Saddam was a sick bastard, but at least under his dictatorship the people had clean water and food, access to what was (probably) a better health care system than we have in the U.S. today, and free education all the way through college. The rep from Voices in the Wilderness believed that just before Gulf War I, Iraq was on the verge of becoming a 1st World nation.

Saddam was an evil man who killed and mutilated thousands, but Bush the Ist killed and mutilated tens of thousands (perhaps even millions) during Gulf War I. The U.S. military illegally took out sewage treatment plants and dams which led to the deaths of perhaps a million children due to water-borne illnesses. This was done in direct violation of international law. The U.S. military also used depleted uranium. Since Gulf War I cancer and birth defect rates in Iraq have sky-rocketed. This has not yet been scientifically linked to the use of depleted uranium, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess that a link of some kind is almost a certainty.

The Bushes killed more innocent Iraqis than Saddam could have in his wildest dreams.

Yup, we liberated them Iraqis real good...from life, health, family and economic independence. :(

that before the Gulf War, the #1 health problem among Iraqi children was obesity, which is a pretty good sign that the people are doing ok

now the kids there have higher cancer rates than most kids anywhere

yeah, so much better off now...

And George Bush and his cabinet don't get return flights back.

But it could be rationally argued that they are anarchy, and that they will once again be ruled despotically.

The only reason they are better off now, is because they are inbetween the injustices. I would gladly trade in a dictator for a occupied anarchy.

when you're sweltering in 128 degrees with no electricity therefore no AC and don't have adequate supplies for your family. I agree with Ladyhawk, he was a bastard just not as bad of a bastard as our gov has made him out to be. She is right on about the good things he did for his country.

People are dying at a horrific rate, there is violence, uncertainty, and they still do not rule their own fate. Then there is the poverty. If this is 'occupied anarchy', I'll take dictatorship any day, especially since it seems obvious Chalabi will soon be taking Saddam's place. Against this, what do they get? 'Freedom?' It's a vague and meaningless word at this point, especially since the Iraqis would hardly qualify as 'free' at this stage. The hope, and it's only the hope, that the U.S. allows a true democracy to form? The hope, and it is only a hope, that Chalabi, if he's installed, is a kinder, gentler dictator than Saddam? The Iraqis didn't get a thing out of the two Gulf Wars except screwed. They went from being one of the most prosperous societies in the ME to being among the most desperate.

Maslow's famed hierarchy of needs comes to mind at times like these, and 'occupied anarchy' isn't even fulfilling the first level of them. It's still early in the game, but it looks to me like the average Iraqi was better off in 1990, and would certainly have been better off if, instead of launching this shitty invasion, Bush had allowed the inspectors to do their jobs, and then ended the sanctions. Of course, America would never have allowed that to happen, so this is all moot, anyway.

Hussein is an evil bastard, but before GW1&2, Iraqis had clean water, electricity, health care, food, education, some of the most important museums in the world, Iraqi women enjoyed education, employment, voting rights and could wear whatever they felt like, and oh yeah, there wasn't an invading army killing them.

I think the US has proved to the people of Iraq that there is something worse than Hussein's rule.