I found the shoe throwing humorous but pointless. For that man I'd imagine it helped his standing with the group he wanted to impress for whatever
his reasons. I saw it as an interesting news tidbit but of little importance as far as the impact it had on anything.
His words in his defense however ring very hollow. Iraq was only a wonderful place for those in Sadam's good graces. The way he presents it he must
have been one of Sadam's in crowd.
LINK
Since the Saddam Hussein regime was overthrown in May, 270 mass graves have been reported. By mid-January, 2004, the number of confirmed sites
climbed to fifty-three. Some graves hold a few dozen bodies—their arms lashed together and the bullet holes in the backs of skulls testimony to
their execution. Other graves go on for hundreds of meters, densely packed with thousands of bodies.
"We've already discovered just so far the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves,"
Wiki Article
* The 1983 attack against Kurdish citizens belonging to the Barzani tribe, 8,000 of whom were rounded up by the regime in northern Iraq and
executed in deserts at great distances from their homes.
* The 1988 Anfal campaign, during which as many as 182,000 people disappeared. Most of the men were separated from their families and were
executed in deserts in the west and southwest of Iraq. The remains of some of their wives and children have also been found in mass graves.
* Chemical attacks against Kurdish villages from 1986 to 1988, including the Halabja attack, when the Iraqi Air Force dropped sarin, VX and tabun
chemical agents on the civilian population, killing 5,000 people immediately and causing long-term medical problems, related deaths, and birth defects
among the progeny of thousands more.
* The 1991 massacre of Iraqi Shia Muslims after the Shia uprising at the end of the Gulf war, in which tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians
in such regions as Basra and Al-Hillah were killed.
* A massacre of Kurds in 1991, which targeted civilians and soldiers who fought for autonomy in northern Iraq after the Gulf war, also resulted in
mass graves.
BBC on Kurds.
UN experts confirmed in 1986 that Iraq had contravened the Geneva Convention by using chemical weapons against Iran...
...In 1988 Iraq turned its chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds...
...Estimates of the number of civilians killed range from 3,200 to 5,000
From Mideast News 1998
The regime of Saddam Hussein is tightening his grip on the country and defusing the possibility of a military coup by purging the army and
executing officers who question orders, according to Source in south Iraq.
On Friday and Saturday, while the United States and Britain air strike was on the way, the Regime executed several officers, many of them are
Shia
I could go on for hours with examples of the brutality against innocent civilians in Iraq prior to our intervention including the occupation of a
Sovereign Nation Kuwait where I could cite many more atrocities.
Now look at this part of the quote in the OP -
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily
bread. And the Shiite would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian
I can't but wonder if he was thinking of their sharing of Mustard Gas with the Kurds when he made that statement? What Sadams Sons did, was that
sharing? The bullets inside the hundreds of thousands of bodies in Southern Iraq were shared I guess if you want to take it literally?
Now if his life was that free and that wonderful that he could say what he says, he would have to have been a Sadam insider and probably a participant
in the sharing?
Like I said I got a laugh when the shoe was thrown but then so did Bush. I'm not a Bush supporter but I also have never seen incivility as a positive
thing, but rather the actions of small minds incapable of expressing themselves in other ways.
My point? Be careful how you pick your heroes. The quoted statement starts with a lie which pretty well eliminates any credibility in anything else he
had to say.
I came to truly dislike and distrust Bush but I'm not going to rewrite history or resort to lies and bad behavior to make my point. This man is after
notoriety and wants attention. Throwing a shoe and then rewriting the pre-war history to explain why does not a hero make. It did probably make him
popular at parties and a cool guy.
He is lucky to be alive. The secret service had every right to shoot him in the face. 
