Sorry, but Saddam Hussein was not a benign dictator and you are really wrong to try to use that term in any way to describe him.
Sorry if that bothers you, but that’s the truth. The Middle East is “a wretched hive of scum and villainy,” as Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, and among all of the ruthless villains over there Saddam Hussein was far from the worst.