IRAQI-AMERICANS talk about Saddam:

Alroumi, 44, fled his home city of Al Basrah in 1991 and hasn’t seen his family since. He was granted political asylum in the United States after a stint in a Saudi Arabia refugee camp.

Across the table, Alroumi described watching dogs pick at the bodies of citizens killed by the Iraqi Republican Guard after the Gulf War in 1991. Like his friends, he fled to Saudi Arabia, and eventually, the United States, where he now works as a mechanic.

“I am worried about my family, but I am happy to get Saddam Hussein,” he said. “I hope he’s running down the highway with (deputy prime minister)Tariq Aziz.”

As news spread of Iraqi troops setting fire to oil wells ahead of advancing U.S. troops, Alrikabi thought again to his days as a young student.

He recalled watching televised speeches of Saddam in which he threatened to leave “an empty country — just dust” to any foreign force that tried to invade.

“That’s what he’s doing now,” he said. “Saddam’s burning my oil. It doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to the Iraqi people.”

Saddam sees the country as his personal possession. Ordinary Iraqis, naturally, resent this. Another one of those weaknesses I mention below.