This is just an isolated measure, but I think it should be borne in mind: Saddam's stability was a state of steady war against various hostile tribes and political enemies. When they found the Saddam-era mass graves in various spots after the U.S. takeover in 2003, the numbers were truly staggering.
I did a little calculation for an AT column and discovered that Iraqis died at a slower pace during their hot war against the U.S. than during peacetime under Saddam Hussein. (That means I excluded GW-1 and the Iran-Iraq war.)
He was a prodigy of killing. I'm not saying that fact should be dispositive in our foreign-policy choices—after all, it's their lousy country. But considering Lockerbie, plus his long history of funneling money to Pali suicide bombers and who-knows-who else, plus his gas attacks on the Kurds, etc., and culminating in his statement on 9-12-01 saying that we deserved 9-11 (the only such statement from a world leader at that time) I would say concerns about him were not unreasonable.
I just don't believe there is a way for us to deal with them without the risk of making a bad problem worse, unless we are prepared to wage total war.
Obviously this is 20/20 hindsight - in 2003 I was supportive of the invasion.