"War in Iraq" for Dummies

Unlike most of the partisans out there, I've taken the time to read the executive summary of the most recent Iraq Survey Group report, which is the one that the press has referenced to proclaim that there are "no WMD's in Iraq". Seems pretty cut and dry, right? We never should have gone to war, right? Naturally, if you were to take the conclusion that the intellectually dishonest reporters have posted, it would seem pretty simple.

It's not so simple.

After reading the report, I have a different viewpoint. According to the Group report, the sanctions and inspections were working. Unfortunately, we gave too much authority to the United Nations, and they managed to screw up the progress the sanctions were making, that is, if you consider bankrupting a nation of innocents "progress". The UN Food for Oil program ended up being the ultimate saving grace for Saddam, allowing him to buy influence in exchange for oil credits. The oil credits, given to influencial politicos from France and Russian (among other countries) created a motivation for them to keep Saddam in power. If he was ousted, so too would be the potential to make more money. All the while, the money that was supposed to be used for feeding the Iraqi people was used to build Saddam's legacy, which included adding to his personal wealth, upgrading palaces, and so on. In addition, these bribed members of Security Council nations would, in his view, promote the idea that sanctions should be completely removed, opening the door for Saddam to restart biological, chemical and nuclear weapons development. He has essentially created technologies up until our invasion that would allow his to quickly return to fully capable WMD's.

The introduction of the Oil-For-Food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the Regime. OFF rescued Baghdad’s economy from a terminal decline created by sanctions. The Regime quickly came to see that OFF could be corrupted to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine sanctions and to provide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and potential WMD-related development.

By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999.

I'm sure that most of you won't bother to read the report. Let me give you the bottom line. If we would have waited and allowed the "inspections to work", ultimately the sanctions would have been lifted and within a few months, Hussein would have had a completely replenished arsenal of WMDs with which to attack and intimidate other countries, including the United States. And he most assuredly would have provided them to our enemies. God forbid if we would have sat back and let that happen!

And remember this... they could still find WMD's buried in the desert, just like they found those banned fighter jets.