Not surprised (1) because Baghdad - at the height of Babylonian capitivty and even after - had some of the top Jewish writers and thinkers, and later had some very well known Jewish writers for hundreds of years, and (2) of course Saddam wanted to steal and suppress that Jewish history, because selling himself to his subjects included selling himself as a “good Muslim”.
He was an Alawite, which to both Shiites, Sunnis and Suffis meant that he was no sort of Muslim at all, and as a National Socialist Baathist, he suppressed Muslims left and right, gas a Kurdish village here, imprison a Shiite cleric or ten there. What he wanted with these writings remains a mystery to me, unless he was trying to use them for some mumbo jumbo-type magic to keep himself in power. Hitler used to have an astrologer, until he killed him. Nazis are a cowardly and superstitious lot.