Sanctions Regime
By The hawk response to the Duelfer Report has been to emphasize Saddam’s intentions, rather than his capabilities. Because he intended to acquire WMD in the future, he remained a threat. The absurdity of this position has been dealt with in a number of places, including here, here, and here. The conservative response to this has been to concentrate on the so-called “failure of the sanctions regime.” David Brooks wrote a column, and the insipid Bird Dog tossed his 1.5 cents in as well. According to this argument, the corruption of the UN oil-for-food program means that Saddam would shortly have escaped sanctions and containment, and started building vast stockpiles of chemical weapons (although not, apparently, biological; the Duelfer Report says that Iraq has abandoned any pretense of restarting its biological program).
Please. Can’t do better than that? Seriously, if you want to justify the war, do it on humanitarian or regional stability grounds. You can still make a case, one that’s a lot better than the WMD case has turned out.
The sanctions regime was leaky from the day it was installed in 1990. Saddam didn’t build WMD. The oil-for-food program may well have been corrupt from its inception. Saddam didn’t build WMD. The weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998. Saddam didn’t build WMD. To make this case, the hawks have to expect us to believe that without the war in March 2003 the world would have forgotten about Saddam, despite the fact that he had allowed inspectors back in, and despite the fact that the United States could have renewed its commitment to containment. To pursue this intellectual fantasy, you must forget that every state on the Security Council had agreed to the return of intrusive inspections, and that EVERY SINGLE ONE of Iraq’s neighbors supported restraining Iraqi weapons capacity, including Syria, Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. You must wish away the no-fly zones that the United States and the United Kingdom showed no signs of abandoning. You must force yourself to believe that Saddam would suddenly have become far more risk-acceptant than he had been in the twelve previous years. You must forget that the United States BY ITSELF could have maintained an inspections regime that would have prevented Hussein from pursuing WMDs, without any help from the international community.
Most people have a gag reflex. Not Brooksie, not Cheney, not Bush, and not the bulk of the warbloggers who find themselves swallowing this bullshit.