Madine: Wow. I could not have put it more succinctly if I'd tried hard. Well done.
Vincible: The only people for whom the sanctions were beneficial were those in Saddam Hussein's regime, those enriching themselves with illegally obtained Iraqi oil via the UN-administered "Oil for Food" program, and those who completely flaunted the sanctions and did business with Hussein's regime anyway. The "those" in the last two categories consist of the states, principally France, Germany and Russia, who opposed every effort of the U.S. to gain UN support for the ousting of Hussein. Hussein was not "contained" by sanctions; he was merely biding his time, a policy that was largely successful due to the mutual dereliction of duty by the Clinton administration and the UN (though, as I noted before, this latter case was more by intent than apathy). Sanctions were a further disaster for the Iraqi people, their primary disaster being the Hussein regime. This situation had to end, and I'm tremendously glad President Bush had the guts to do it.
Solitair: You say you'd have considered an unsanctioned Hussein regime as no more dangerous than a nuclear-armed North Korea, right? Well, doesn't just about EVERYONE consider that to be a TREMENDOUS danger? Isn't that why there are high-level, multi-lateral talks going on as we write to stop North Korea from having effective nuclear weapons? Let us not forget that Hussein already HAD WMDs, and by all appearances was on the verge of acquiring nuclear arms himself. It's interesting that you mention the North Korean situation, for this is one that was assumed to have been dealt with by the Clinton administration, through the dubious negotiations of ex-president Jimmy Carter. We give them nuclear power plants that couldn't turn out weapons-grade nuclear materials, they don't pursue a weapons program. Remember that? And now they have both, since the toxic regime of Kim Jong-il proved untrue to the agreement and unpurchaseable by Western largesse (a great deal of American wheat was included in the deal to stave off massive starvation in North Korea, one of the "justifications" for the construction of nuclear power plants that would have produced weapons-grade material).
So how much more trustworthy would Saddam Hussein have been? Let us remember that during surrender talks at the end of the Gulf War, General Schwarzkopf allowed the Iraqi government to still fly helicopters for simple transportation between far-flung locations (many Iraqi highways were blocked by destroyed Republican Guard columns). Hussein promptly turned those 'copters into gunships and began finishing the genocide against the Kurds that he started with his chemical weapons years before. This resulted in an immense refugee problem, primarily in northern Iraqi, and the subsequent establishment of the no-fly zones in the north and the south, patrols of which by Coalition forces were regularly met with anti-aircraft fire during their entire existence. And you'd trust an unfettered Hussein regime to be pacified by "a few billion dollars?" Something it had boatloads of despite the sanctions?
To your final point about turning over the development of the post-war Iraq to the UN, well, the UN WAS there. And then they got bombed by the terrorists that have flooded into the country and ran away to conduct their operations from the isle of Cypress! This is a key example of one thing that's been true in this world for the last sixty years or so: only the United States of America has the guts to step in and effectively deal with tyrannical regimes. Not to say we don't have some valiant partners; the PMs of both England and Australia have stood strong beside us, despite strong opposition at home, and even South Korea is defying the terrorists and keeping their commitment to send peace-keeping troops. But would any of this had happened if the U.S. hadn't taken a stand? Look at the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia: did ANY European government take ANY effective action to stop the "ethnic cleansing" (read: genocide) occuring in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo? No, they didn't, and it was in their collective backyard. Same continent, not more than 500 miles away, and they did puff up and condemn this and get outraged over that, but who took the lead and stopped it? Not to puff up too much myself, bu the chant, "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!" does come to mind. And as further instruction as to the "effectiveness" of UN peacekeeping, perhaps THE most overlooked story in this post-9/11, post-Iraq War world is that the UN did largely take over peacekeeping in Kosovo after the U.S. airstrikes pacified the worst of the ethnic cleansing (though we still do have a troop commitment there). The thing is that it's all gone to hell over there. Ethnic cleansing has returned and is not being stopped by the UN "peacekeepers" and though the situation was supposedly dealt with years ago, the region is FAR behind Iraq in being built back into a thriving, self-governed state. And you'd really trust the UN do to a better job in Iraq? When they don't even have the intestinal fortitude to deal with one bombing? Please!
