Yes, I think that would be perfectly fine for you to say.
And in the case of Saddam and Iraq, though it is indeed true that he was killing a lot of people, the primary motivation was NOT to save people. The real reason was oil. If you had asked the US govt. a year and a half ago, they would've said that the motivation was those damn slippery WMD's. If you asked them now, they'd say it was "humanitarian intervention".
In fact, they ended up hurting more people than they probably saved. They said they weren't going to kill any civilians... How they expected to pull that off, I don't know. It's a war, for god's sake. And they just go around chosing random people and saying "hey you, come over so we can question you, you dirty terrorist".
In short, "human rights" (in quotations because I really don't believe that's a very accurate word... Can't be bothered to explain) were an issue in Iraq, but that's true in countries all over the world. Which raises the question, "why did we pick Iraq?" (actually, we know why...) It is quite disrespectful of us to barge into a country and overthrow its leadership, no matter how poor it may be. And, we didn't even accomplish what is now said to be the "goal" of the war.
Just remember kids...
war