Zimpapers Logo

Washington — The world would be a better place if dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were still in power, top Republican US presidential hopeful Donald Trump said in comments aired on Sunday.

The billionaire real estate tycoon in a talk show said the Middle East “blew up” around US President Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, his biggest Democratic rival in the race for the White House. “100 percent,” Trump said when asked if the world would be better off with Hussein and Gaddafi still at the helm in Iraq and Libya. Both strongmen committed atrocities against their own people and are now dead. Saddam, the former Iraqi president, was toppled in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and was executed in 2006. Gaddafi — who ruled Libya for four decades — was ousted and slain in October 2011. “People are getting their heads chopped off. They’re being drowned. Right now it’s far worse than ever under Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi,” Trump said. “I mean, look what happened. Libya is a catastrophe. Libya is a disaster. Iraq is a disaster. Syria is a disaster. The whole Middle East. It all blew up around Hillary Clinton and around Obama. It blew up.”

Calling Iraq the “Harvard of terrorism,” Trump said the country had turned into a “training ground for terrorists”.

“If you look at Iraq from years ago, I’m not saying he [Saddam] was a nice guy. He was a horrible guy but it’s better than it is now,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson called on Sunday for a ban on abortion in nearly all cases, and likened those seeking to terminate their pregnancies to slave owners, in comments certain to spark controversy.

Carson, 64, said it was illogical for mothers to believe they have the right to kill their unborn children.“I’m a reasonable person, and if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I’ll listen,” Carson told “Meet the Press” on NBC television. “In the ideal situation, the mother shouldn’t believe that the baby is her enemy and shouldn’t be looking to terminate the baby.” While opposed to abortions for pregnancies due to rape or incest, the retired neurosurgeon said he would allow mothers to terminate pregnancy if necessary to preserve their own life and health. But he stressed such cases are “extraordinarily rare. Think about this — during slavery, and I know that’s one of those words you aren’t supposed to say, but I’m saying it — during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do,” said Carson, who is African American. — Al Jazeera