They were tiny compared to the number of people we are killing, on a per year basis.
The estimates from human rights groups (whose estimates about the American militaries kill rate of Iraqis due to the adventure in Iraq folks on the right don't like) put the number of people killed by Saddam at around 200,000 over the ENTIRE period of his rule. We can't really count folks who died in battle, especially since the Iran-Iraq war was a bit of a proxy war for us, and we sided with...you guessed it...Iraq (not that there's anything wrong with siding with Iraq when it is in the geo political interest of the US, but it is a little disingenuous to then come back and pretend the guy is a brutal murderer and you are shocked, yes shocked, that he is one- of course idiots who know nothing about history will buy that, and there are a lot of those...).
So, maybe 200k people, over the entire reign. Bad? yes. Worse than the average bloody dictator? I doubt it. Should the US keep killing people in Iraq at its current rate it will best Saddam quite soon. I know, I know- we're "killing for democracy, peace, love, and apple pie." Unfortunately that doesn't make the people we kill any less dead.
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