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Don't rail against the evils of a program and then use it to later support your case.
Published on October 20, 2004 By Eastern Diamondback In Politics
With the information raised in the Duelfer Report, activists on the left have apparently jumped on the president and said "Ah HA!" The report clearly states what appears to have been known for some time now: there were no massive stockpiles of weapons in Iraq. This is where the citation of the document ends.

Pundits are quick to point that sanctions are the most likely reason that Saddam could not create massive amounts of botulism, sarin, VX, and anthrax. And they are right. It's hard to undertake such a complex program when there's no money or materials to run them. But if the critics would read further they'd see that Saddam bribed French, Russian, and Chinese officials (members of the UN Security Council) into undermining those sanctions. In addition to that, Saddam had every intention of reconstituting the program in the event that sanctions were lifted.

Now comes the dilemma. How can people on the left champion such a document as supporting their case? Was it not the Left who abhorred that fact that sanctions were killing millions of Iraqis, especially children? Wasn't this supposedly one of Al Qaeda's main recruiting tools? Wasn't this an example of oppression by Western Capitalist pigs? Exactly how long was the UN going to continue the sanctions against Iraq? Until Saddam died? Why should we assume another Ba'athist killer wouldn't take the reins and guide Iraq down the same totalitarian path?

The choices were limited. Either A.) continue the sanctions and the delightless drawbacks that come with them, B.) unconditionally drop the sanctions and allow the Ba'athists to restart their programs, or C.) Remove them from power.




Comments
on Oct 20, 2004
Interesting debate.

Worth pointing out that the report suggests that Iraq wanted to bribe French, Chinese and Russian diplomats. It in no way provides any proof that this bribery occurred or that any of the people on the oil voucher list did indeed receive such vouchers illegally. It does however provide enough potential evidence for such claims to be investigated properly, which is what is now happening with the oil for food inquiries.

I think that there was also an option D.) Change the sanction regime. I don't believe anyone can claim the sanctions were working because their real aim was to remove Saddam, and this did not happen. Saddam was still building palaces and creaming money off the programes to do so with. This suggested that the sanction regime needed immediate reform of the oil for food program.

Paul.