The real truth about Iraq
Yes, America was wrong about Saddam's weapons stockpiles and programs. But the Duelfer report makes it clear that the sanctions were increasingly ineffective and that Saddam would simply bide his time, waiting until the sanctions were either ended or eroded while turning the U.N. Oil-for-Food program into an $11 billion slush fund to buy influence among several key U.N. members, including France, China, and Russia. With the complicity of the U.N. officials allegedly involved in Saddam's Oil-for-Food bribery scheme, can there be any doubt that the sanctions would have eventually disappeared?
The French worked at every turn to frustrate efforts to hold Saddam's feet to the fire. A French legislator even told an Iraqi intelligence official that Paris would veto any U.N. resolution authorizing war against Iraq. In fact, France threatened to do just that. But for what, exactly? Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, told Duelfer that "French oil companies wanted to secure two large oil contracts." National bribery on top of individual bribery--now, that's something you don't see every day.
Duelfer told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "Sanctions were in free fall . . . . If not for 9/11, I don't think they would exist today" and described Saddam as "a grave threat" to the Middle East and to the entire world.
What stopped Saddam was the will of a few strong-minded leaders who believed in a more forceful response than simply joining hands and singing "Kumbaya."
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