you could be right, or...
...not. Without knowing Saddam's mind, who can say.
From what I've read of him, he's as complex a creature as one might suspect. A thug, a survivor, a murderer both mass and otherwise, a man who reportedly weeps like a child when he's "forced" to kill an intimate. Apparently a remarkable judge of character and manipulator of loyalties.
Could the protests have emboldened him? Until the inner histories are written, who can say?