Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says the world would be “100 percent” better with Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi still ruling Iraq and Libya, respectively.
Donald Trump said Sunday in Miami on CNN’s State of the Union that the world would be much a better place if ruthless dictators like Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were still in power.
Trump said he believes Iraq and Libya would be less fractured and promote a more stable Middle East if the Hussein and Gadhafi had not been forcefully pushed out of power. Hussein fell from power following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Gadhafi was ousted from Libya following violent civil revolution in 2011 that ultimately resulted in a NATO-led military intervention. Saddam Hussein was captured by a US-led coalition on December 2003. Saddam was convicted of charges related to the killing of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites in 1982, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006. Gadhafi was captured while traveling in a convoy. Gadhafi died after a grenade blast, a beating and after suffering at least one gunshot wound about October 20, 2011.
When asked if the world would be a better place with Hussein and Gadhafi in power, Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “100%.”
“I mean, look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists. He (Hussein) would kill the terrorists immediately, which is like now it’s the Harvard of terrorism,” Trump said. “If you look at Iraq from years ago, I’m not saying he was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy, but it was a lot better than it is right now. Right now, Iraq is a training ground for terrorists. Right now Libya, nobody even knows Libya, frankly there is no Iraq and there is no Libya. It’s all broken up. They have no control. Nobody knows what’s going on.”
Both Gadhafi and Hussein committed atrocities against their own people and were among the world’s worst human rights abusers. Trapper asked Trump about the human rights abuses. Trump replied that human rights abuses are worse now than they ever were. “People are getting their heads chopped off, they’re being drowned. Right now, they are far worse than they were, ever, under Saddam Hussein or Gadhafi,” Trump said.
“We’re pouring trillions of dollars into the Middle East, and we have nothing for it. Nothing,” Trump said.
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