Author Saïd Aburish has written about Saddam.
It turns out Saddam is an extremely cruel dictator, feared in his own country, who also fears his own people and his soldiers (who are not armed except for his own presidential guards who are protecting him). But he had himself shot opponents, even friends who'm he "had to eliminate". Once, there was the poor widow that Saddam visited and he told her "you must understand, he had to die". When an attempt to assassinate him in 1982 had failed, he erased the town where the plot took place (Dujail) and eliminated it from the maps.
Saddam has a role model: Stalin. Both came into power overthrowing their former leader (Bakr for Saddam, Lenin for Stalin), with the help of their respective secret services. Both came from rural areas, both hated the army, Both have a personality cult in their country.
However, Saddam is also a poor speaker, very shy, but extremely violent. During his reign, illiteracy dropped, he invited the greatest companies in the world. When he fought against Iran, and before, he was largely helped by the west (Mirage F1, nuclear power from the french, and the US also widely helped arming Iraq (Donald Rumsfeld was a good friend of his). All this changed after the Kuwait invasion.
But how to overthrow him? Who can replace him?
There's that man Nizar al-Khazraji, but he's far from clean.
All things to consider, nowadays.

Raoul