Reading Saddam's bio, your version is pretty much full of shit. His history sounds far more like a parallel to the rise of communism in Russia and the USSR with Saddam rising through the ranks of the Ba'ath party to gain a position much like Lavrenty Beria as head of what amounted to the secret police arm of that party, solely controlled by him in 1966.
He consolidated that power and by 1970 had gained full control of the government. Much like Stalin--the Ba'athists were very close to Marxists in their political and economic outlook--he began a ruthless economic and grandiose central plan to build up Iraq. Saddam saw himself as "defender of the Arab world" as well. Sounds like several other ruthless dictators to me.
His huge spending on public works, both for the general welfare and grandiose projects to himself, brought the economy to the point of collapse so he embarked on a series of wars of conquest against his neighbors. That too sounds like many other ruthless dictators.
Interestingly, up to 1978, the ayatollah Khomeini--who later overthrew the Shah in Iran--was residing in Bagdad having been exiled from Iran. At that time Saddam exiled him to France because Khomeini was stirring up the Shite arm of Islam within Iraq and Saddam wasn't happy about that. Up until Khomeini returned to Iran and overthrew the Shah, it was Saddam's position to maintain peaceful relations with Iran.
On the whole, it sounds far more like Saddam was just another power-hungry dictator of the radical Left looking to gain more power and extend his worldview on politics and economics of the far Left than some puppet of the CIA.
