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.
AUGUST 1997 : (IRAQ : ASSASSINATIONS OF CHRISTIAN LEADERS) leaders (AINA, 08-19-1997)
1999 : (IRAQ : ISLAMOFASCIST TERRORISM) In the northern UN “Safe Haven,” attacks against Assyrian Christian villages (AINA, 10-16-1999)
1999 : (IRAQ : ISLAMOFASCIST BOMBINGS OF CHRISTIAN CONVENTS) as well as Christmas-time bombings of convents (AINA, 12-25-1999) have been previously reported
FEBRUARY 2001 : (IRAQ : ASSASSINATIONS OF CHRISTIAN LEADERS) leaders (AINA, 02-19-2001)
But there's a difference between Islamic "rhetoric" plus window-dressing, vs the more defining acts of state. He forcibly suppressed his rivals, and his rivals were the kind of islamists who, shall we say, really needed to be suppressed.
It's not Monday Morning Quarterbacking to note that what Pope John Paul II said would happen back in 2003, happened.