I think Saddam showed something of a misunderstanding of organic chemistry and renewable energy. The idea that you can take oil out of the ground and replace it with human corpses seems, superficially, to make sense—especially if you can use the extracted oil itself to pay people to let you carry on doing something that those interfering Anglos were so unreasonably squeamish about. Unfortunately for the thousands of dead, the British and American bullies came along and dug the slaughterees up before they could be converted into useful hydrocarbons. They died in vain.