Saddam Hussein was not an islamist.
He was a dictator who kept a lid on the islamists.
More happened than just dealing with Saddam. And really, that was already going to eventually happen even without 9/11.
Saddam Hussein’s intel chief was both Baathist and Islamist. He cofounded ISIS with Zarqawi after working for years with Islamic radicals.
Saddam built his mega-mosque with the scud missile and rifle lookalike minarets to appeal to Islamists ; he also instituted sharia law in Iraq before the invasion to please the islamists he and his General were courting and once he did it hundreds of women were decapitated in Baghdad, mostly dissidents accused of prostitution. His general is a believer of a sect with end times prophesy much like Iran’s Ahmadinejad, only not Shia.
And anyone who bothered to read his speeches from the late 90s couldn’t miss the Islamist rhetoric.
The myth of secular Iraq needs to be put to rest.