Donald Trump Praises Saddam Hussein for Being 'Good' at Killing Terrorists
07 Jul 201609:33 AM
Donald Trump Praises Saddam Hussein for Being 'Good' at Killing Terrorists

Ashley Parker

The New York Times

Donald J. Trump praised Saddam Hussein at a campaign rally on Tuesday evening, saying that he had done a good job of killing terrorists.

 

Speaking to a packed auditorium here, Mr. Trump first called Mr. Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, a “really bad guy,” before offering him brief plaudits.

 

“But you know what he did well?” Mr. Trump said. “He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. It was over.”

 

Moments later, he added that after Mr. Hussein’s country was destabilized by the 2003 invasion under President George W. Bush, it became a breeding ground for terrorists.

 

“Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism,” Mr. Trump continued. “You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It’s like Harvard, O.K.? So sad.”

 

Mr. Trump’s warm words about Mr. Hussein date to the Republican primary in South Carolina, when he first said that the strongman stood out for killing terrorists.

 

But Mr. Trump’s recollections of Mr. Hussein’s thwarting terrorism are not grounded in fact. While Mr. Hussein’s interests were not aligned with jihadists, whom Mr. Trump frequently rails against on the campaign trail, Iraq was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department before the 2003 invasion.

 

In the 1980s, Mr. Hussein fired scud missiles at Israel and used chemical weapons on tens of thousands of Iraqis.

 

The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, struggled on Tuesday to explain Mr. Trump’s comments in an interview with Fox News’s “The Kelly File.”

 

“He was one of the 20th century’s most evil people,” Mr. Ryan said of Mr. Hussein, when pressed on Mr. Trump’s remarks. “He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons.”

 

Mr. Trump’s comments, which came as an aside during his rally, detracted attention from what was shaping up to be a rough news day for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, recommended that no criminal charges be filed against Mrs. Clinton for her handling of classified information on a private email server while she was secretary of state, but offered a broad rebuke of her judgment, calling her “extremely careless.”

 

Mr. Trump, who for part of his speech read from prepared remarks attacking Mrs. Clinton over her use of a private email server, also accused her of trying to “bribe” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to reports that Mrs. Clinton was considering keeping Ms. Lynch on as attorney general if she is elected president, according to Democrats close to her.

 

After Mr. Trump’s rally, the Clinton campaign released a statement criticizing Mr. Trump, arguing that his “cavalier compliments for brutal dictators” show just how “dangerous” he would be in the Oval Office.

 

“Donald Trump’s praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds,” Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser to Mrs. Clinton, said in the statement. “He has applauded the strength China showed in the Tiananmen Square massacre, offered admiration for Kim Jong-un’s murderous consolidation of power in North Korea, and consistently lavished praise on Vladimir Putin. Tonight, Trump yet again lauded Saddam Hussein as a great killer of terrorists, noting with approval that he never bothered to read anyone their rights.”