Um...the "stable and strong" pre-2003 Iraq was murdering tens of thousands of people on average. If you bother to do the math, that comes to a hell of a lot more than 64 a day.
is only the most glaring sign that something has gone terribly wrong,
Yes, something has gone terribly wrong with your religion.
The author is well aware of Saddam's toll. I have a register which lists 397 eliminated villages, Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. ... The work is called "The Register of Eliminated Villages." You flip the pages, beautifully scripted and done with a pencil. Then the writer of this book has covered it, folded it very neatly with a nice, great big book cover made of paper, with great big white flowers against a red background. It's a very decorative, pretty thing. ... You look at this person who has taken such immaculate care of this book, which records the destruction of 397 Kurdish villages. ... You look at the book and you know you're touching evil somehow. That link says the author is an aetheist. He talks as if he's an Arab, not a Kurd.