Adding to a complex situation, there were actually high-level Christians who served in Saddam’s government (as there are in the Iraqi government today), such as Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, a Catholic. Hamdoon did not like Saddam’s Iraq, and he was not free to leave. In fact, he tried to escape the country but was always kept under strict surveillance.

Things immediately got better for Iraqi Christians once Saddam was forced out of Baghdad by U.S. troops. Only days later, on April 20, 2003, Iraqi Christians celebrated Easter freely for the first time in a generation.

One such Christian was Selma Dawood, a 75-year-old widow who lived in an Assyrian Christian town in northern Iraq called Qaraqosh. The ancient town is marked by two towering Christian churches. Almost overnight in late April 2003, there were finally more steeples in Qaraqosh than murals of Saddam.

Dawood had a world-famous relative: Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, the top Christian in Saddam’s government, and a pathological liar. “Let them [American troops] arrest him,” said Selma Dawood of her sister’s son. Asked if her nephew ever lifted a finger to help Iraq’s Christians, she responded: “No. Zero. Zero. He’s very, very bad.” Reflective of Saddam’s government, Aziz did not protect Christians.

Most significant, when not targeted for their faith, Iraqi Christians were targeted for their mere humanity. In the general sweep of things, Iraqi Christians were just as likely as Iraqi Muslims to have their children locked up in dog cages, to have their wives raped or beheaded or hung upside down in front of their family as they menstruated (an interrogation technique under Saddam), to have their ears surgically amputated for refusing military conscription, to be subjected to chemical baths or the attachment of electrodes to their genitals, to be fed feet first into large industrial meat grinders, or to be lynched from lampposts. Christians were among the 300,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqis shot and shoveled into mass graves.

So, all of this is a sincere caution in assessing a bad situation for Iraqi Christians—one for which American Christians who supported the war have a special obligation to not be silent No doubt, Iraq’s Christians still carry their cross, while they also finally enjoy freedoms unavailable during 35 awful years under Saddam, including the right to seek redress and protection from a very different government, one which America has a likewise special obligation to try to influence for the better.

Paul Kengor is executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College and author of God and George W. Bush: A Spiritual Life (HarperCollins, 2004).