I completely agree it had its issues when Sadamn was around, the gas attacks and cleansing etc. He was right to be removed, tried and punished. These atrocities have multiplied ten fold since his capture, handover and execution. Probably exasperated by his death. A lose lose situation we should never have been a part of and maybe some families would still be celebrating this time of year with their sons, daughters, husband's, wives, brothers and sisters.
It's hard to know what people on the ground are saying, as the reporting isn't exactly going to be unbiased and hard to know from our far right media, who are well against Blair etc. I don't think there's been any chemical weapons used since he went, GDP is up, population has nearly doubled, oil production doubled etc, so there is some positive signs.
Saddam was doing some very dodgy crap during the conflict in 2003, some of which goes well against the Geneva convention. Also, prior to it, when he was meant to be disarming he was wrapping jets and tanks in cellophane and burying them, testing using fighter jets as "crop dusters", deep cleaning manufacturing plants, letting inspectors into the places they didn't want to go, not letting them into places they did want to go, putting red crosses on military buildings, putting troop operating stations in schools (along with kids, not instead of), launching jets to the Kuwait border, then on day 1 he launched scuds at UK/ USA bases in Kuwait etc. He had to go, but we went about it the wrong way in hindsight, but even if we didn't go then, the USA would have went in anyway.
I don't think we should blame how the Middle East has been since Iraq and Afgan totally on the 2000's wars, I'm not saying they've got much better, but those places have always been bad news, and as one idiot goes, another takes their place. I think the hope was we could replace the idiots with someone better but now the hope is that the idiots become a bit more "tame" I suppose, and there's signs they're doing that (slightly).
To be fair, everyone I know who went over there thought they were doing the right thing at the time, and most don't regret it based on the info available at the time, and what we achieved by getting rid of Saddam and OBL etc. In hindsight things could have been done a bit different, but all it would have been is a delay, nothing was going to stop the USA from going, and us from following them. Of course there is massive regret by those who lost colleagues, mates and families etc, but pretty much most I knew from 2003-2005 actually wanted to go, as mad as that sounds.