Iraqi Shias faced persecution from Saddam and US forces alike

Evidence

“I remember the American soldiers barging into our home [in Iraq], pointing their guns at me, my brothers, and parents, and I thought, ‘Why are we being punished for something that happened on the other side of the world?’ ” Iraqi Shias like Hussein were trapped between the cruel persecution of Saddam and the violence of an American empire that marched into their homes armed to the teeth, illiterate to the distinctions between Sunni and Shia, let alone Arab from Iranian. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 200