# Would the U.S., Iraq, and the world be better off if we'd never invaded? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2004, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379 "2004-09-21T21:45:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/41 "2004-09-22T09:52:41Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > So,in the case of Iraq, once Saddam was defeated, we should have: > (1) Turned over the Iraqi governemnet to a local authority, and LEFT, or Correct. So what does this tell you about the actual goal of this invasion? Was it really just simply to get rid of an eeevil tyrant? > [@](#): > > (2) Ruthlessly supressed the rebellion: in the case of fallujah, told the rebels: any attacks on the US Army, and we raze the city to the ground! > This is exactly what the good muslim leader of Syria did (the late Hafiez Assad) when he was faced witha rebellion in the Syrian city of Hamas. He had his army encircle the city, and machine gunned everybody who tried to escape (about 55,000 people were killed). No more rebellion after that…odd,I didn’t see much condemnation from the muslim world about the brutality of the late Assad. Ah, you mean do what Saddam did when the Shi’ites rebelled? Do what we use to accuse Saddam of being an eeevil tyrant, in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/42 "2004-09-22T10:12:11Z")
**pervert** > [@](#): > > No, what the inspections would have discovered is that Iraq had no WMD because the sanctions were working. They were fully effective as a means of containing Saddam Hussein. > > **pervert** _Even if this were true, it was only so because of the continued presence of a pretty sizable military on their border._ Cite? I assume you are not referring to the increased US military presence during Feb 2003. Rather you refer to the ongoing, no fly zone troops. See General Zinni’s recent speech for the comparitive costs of enforcing sanctions against the costs of invasion. > [@](#): > > Accordingly, the continued presence of US troops is not needed. The situation is not as you posit: on-again/off-again depending of Saddam’s assessment of the will to enforce inspections. > > **pervert** _So, this is patently not true._ You _are_ referring to the invasion forces. Your claim of superlative certainty is built on mere assertion and contradicts the facts. The preferable view is mine, being as it cogently reflects the facts. The success of sanctions was prior to and independent of the invading army’s presence. The US threat helped with the _inspections_. However, with or without the _inspections_, the fact remains that there was nothing there to find. And there hadn’t been for at least a decade. The unlikely case is that you have misunderstood the discussion and refer to the earlier US/UK military presence, merely and solely deployed to enforce sanctions. **furt** and I were discussing the pre-war invasion deployment. \*\* furt\*\* argued those troops would remain indefinitely for the region to be secure. I showed the contrary. However if you in honest error do refer to the lesser and earlier contingent, then yes I agree. That small military presence may have been needed. I never intended to argue otherwise. **Latro** > [@](#): > > \*Cite please? > \* > Indeed ! Hmmm, I thought the stories were notorious? Well seeing as you ask: [The Link](http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3403529/) > [@](#): > > Still, El-Hage’s purported peace overture sheds new light on the back-channel diplomacy that involved some Bush administration officials on the eve of war. The story begins late last year when the CIA was approached by Syrian intermediaries with an unusual offer that reportedly came from Lt. Gen. Tahir Jalil Habbush, Saddam Hussein’s chief of intelligence. The Iraqis allegedly wanted to avert war and were willing to go to great lengths to appease the Bush administration, which eventually might have included permitting the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq and\*\* free elections.\*\* [The Other Link](http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1079769,00.html) > [@](#): > > Iraqi intelligence was also offering privately to allow several thousand US troops into the country to take part in the search for banned weapons. > … > But even after the war got under way, the Iraqi intelligence chief appears to have sought new compromises. > > This time the conduit was Robert Baer, another former CIA official. There was talk of a meeting between Mr Baer and GenHabbush in Ramadi, outside Baghdad, in early April. **“It was a promise to hold free elections supervised by France and the US,”** Mr Baer said. But the proposed meeting never happened. Two daysearlier, on April 9, the house it was supposed to take place in was bombed by US planes with six precision-guided bombs. _my emphases_ ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/43 "2004-09-22T13:15:06Z")
Others can do what they want, but I’m personally not going to stack the deck in favor of my thesis by claiming these iffy last-minute overtures were genuinely viable options. Also, while I respect the argument (Kerry’s, and allegedly Bush’s at the time) that nothing less than an invasion force on Saddam’s doorstep would gain us real inspections and a viable peace, I personally consider the entire buildup - starting with Bush’s “Axis of Evil” saber-rattling in January 2002 - to have been detrimental to the war on al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers, in terms of military and intel resources, and in terms of the time, attention, and focus of our leadership. So I personally can’t use the possibility of any extraordinary last-minute pre-invasion deals to bolster my position, even if I believed those deals could have been realized - and I’m pretty skeptical about that anyway. My underlying position doesn’t really leave any room for it. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/44 "2004-09-22T17:00:22Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > > [@RTFirefly](#): > > > > Well, not entirely. In fact, hardly at all, for 50% of Iraq’s population. Women, that is. Is there any realistic possibility that women will come out of this in the near-to-middle-term future (the next 20 years, say, since that was the timeframe I gave in the OP) with anything like the everyday freedoms they enjoyed under Saddam? Feel free to make your case. > > Again, you are talking about now -vs- down the road. Certainly right NOW women’s rights have been curtailed. However, there is nothing to say that if Iraq stablizes that it needs stay that way…in fact, I’d be surprised if it does IF Iraq stablizes. You are again making an assumption here and projecting today into the future…we just don’t know how things will fall out. I strongly disagree here. One of the scary things that’s happened in the Sunni triangle and western Iraq is that the secular Ba’athists - the one group in Arab Iraq not likely to oppress women - have lost out to the religious fanatics. Who, exactly, is going to stand up for women’s rights in Iraq? There is nobody. > [@xtisme](#): > > > [@RTFirefly](#): > > > > The thing is, men have to come out a lot better over that time period for one to be able to balance out what essentially amounts to the imprisonment/captivity of women, and thus be able to say the Iraqis as a whole are doing better than they were under Saddam. > > Not at all. All that has to happen is for Iraq to be stable, prosperous, and for the every day Iraqi not to have to worry about having to wind up in a mass grave somewhere at the whim of Saddam…or be raped by one of his sons or henchmen. However, again, its an assumption on your part that women WON’T have the same or better rights in a future stable/peaceful Iraq (always assuming there IS such an animal). It’s an assumption that seems to be agreed to by pretty much everyone I’ve read. The Shi’ites observe Shari’a law, as do the Sunni fundamentalists who have won out in western Iraq - in Fallujah and nearby cities. They’re not going to spontaneously change. Women’s rights, to the extent practiced under Saddam, were something that stood largely due to his edict. Now Saddam is gone, and the chance that an enlightened secular ruler will arise in Iraq, if and when anyone asserts control over the country, is pretty slim. Saddam’s failure has been perceived on the ground as the failure of secularism, and so the fundamentalists’ hand has been strengthening - ever since the wake of Gulf War I. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/45 "2004-09-22T18:11:12Z")
> [@sevastopol](#): > > Way ahead of you here. You are oddly enough, assuming good faith on the part of Saddam Hussein. That is, he had no MDW because he dutifully decided to comply with the UN and wanted to maintain ambiguity to save face. > > No, what the inspections would have discovered is that Iraq had no WMD because the sanctions were working. They were fully effective as a means of containing Saddam Hussein. > > Accordingly, the continued presence of US troops is not needed. The situation is not as you posit: on-again/off-again depending of Saddam’s assessment of the will to enforce inspections. > > Instead it is a continuing even hum - “the-sanctions-are-working-are-working…” That is what the inspections would determine. Or would have. 1. You assume that the sanctions in place would remain effective; and while that might have been probable, it would be by no means assured. Again, it would boil down to “He didn’t have them the last time we checked, and so far as we know he hasn’t made any progress since.” It’s not like you’re locking a prisoner in a cell with no windows, after all. It’s a big country, and he had money. If he still had the intention, there would always be the possibility he’d acquire the capacity. Whether that possibilty was enough to justify invasion, of course, is the question. 2. Just enforcing the sanctions as they existed in the 90s would still entail an indefinite US military presence based in the region. 3. Recall that the sanctions were no cup of tea; they were responsible for Iraq’s deteriorated infrastructure, as well as shortages of essential goods. Keeping the sanctions in place wouldn’t have been the worst possible scenario, to be sure; but neither were they an optimal long-term solution, especially given the large probability SH would pass rule to one of his sons. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/46 "2004-09-22T18:14:01Z")
On re-reading, I see you already addressed and conceded #2; apologies. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/47 "2004-09-22T19:00:58Z")
> [@sevastopol](#): > > However if you in honest error do refer to the lesser and earlier contingent, then yes I agree. That small military presence may have been needed. I never intended to argue otherwise. Fair enough. Then we agree on this. We disagree on the cost, or effectiveness, perhaps, but I thought for sure you were saying that we could have withdrawn from the region. My mistake. > [@](#): > > Hmmm, I thought the stories were notorious? Well seeing as you ask: > > [The Link](http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3403529/) You did not, however, quote this paragraph. “_A senior U.S. intelligence official said: “During the run up to the war there were a wide variety of people sending signals that some Iraqis might have an interest in negotiation. These signals came via a broad range of foreign intelligence services, other governments, third parties, charlatans and independent actors. Every lead that was at all plausible—and some that weren’t—were followed up. In the end, we were aware of no one in a position to make any deal anywhere near acceptable to the United States.”_” You asked for a cite on the costs and effectiveness of the sanctions. I had one yesterday but cannot now find it. I will look it up and post it later today. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/48 "2004-09-22T20:42:47Z")
[Here it is. (PDF Warning)](http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/fac/steven.davis/research/War%20in%20Iraq%20versus%20Containment,%20Weighing%20the%20Costs%20(March%202003).pdf) It is not so much about the success of the sanctions as it is about comparing the cost. As I said before, I am not sure who these guys are so I can’t vouch for them, but they make a pretty deniable claim about the size of the sanction force. To wit “_Prior to the recent buildup, the U.S. devoted roughly 30,000 troops, 30 ships (including a carrier battle group), and about 200 aircraft and other equipment to containment efforts.4 These resources proved insufficient to enforce U.N. mandates or, evidently, to prevent Saddam Hussein from continued investments in weapons of mass destruction._” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/49 "2004-09-22T20:43:15Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. You assume that the sanctions in place would remain effective; and while that might have been probable, it would be by no means assured. Again, it would boil down to “He didn’t have them the last time we checked, and so far as we know he hasn’t made any progress since.” It’s not like you’re locking a prisoner in a cell with no windows, after all. It’s a big country, and he had money. If he still had the intention, there would always be the possibility he’d acquire the capacity. Whether that possibilty was enough to justify invasion, of course, is the question. > > 2. Just enforcing the sanctions as they existed in the 90s would still entail an indefinite US military presence based in the region. > > 3. Recall that the sanctions were no cup of tea; they were responsible for Iraq’s deteriorated infrastructure, as well as shortages of essential goods. > > Keeping the sanctions in place wouldn’t have been the worst possible scenario, to be sure; but neither were they an optimal long-term solution, especially given the large probability SH would pass rule to one of his sons. Maybe the United States just needs a “ten year” rule. If an international situation hasn’t resolved itself within ten years, we send in the troops. We could have attacked the Soviet Union in 1955, Red China in 1959, North Korea in 1962, and Cuba in 1971. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/50 "2004-09-22T21:46:46Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > As for the medium time frame, say within the next 20 years, I’ll still stick to my prediction…I think there WILL be a stable/peaceful Iraq within that timeframe, and that those future Iraqi’s will be better off for this invasion than they would have been under Saddam & son’s and their successors. I agree with you halfway - I think that the odds favor some sort of stabilized situation within the next 20 years. The problem is, I don’t see any grounds for believing it’ll come relatively soon - and if they spend the next 17 years fighting tooth and nail, then finally coming to some sort of armistice, it’s hard to see how Iraq will be better in 2024 than it was in 2002. [Update from Basra](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3675538.stm) for those who think everything’s hunky-dory in the south. > [@](#): > > Well, Lebanon isn’t exactly a good parallel. For one thing, they don’t have a vital natural resource in Lebanon…certainly not to the degree that Iraq does. Secondly afaik no major power has gone all out to try and stablize the situation there by sending in troops and pouring in money. That cuts two ways, sure…but I think it will make a difference IF America can grit its teeth and find some fortitude to stick it out in the mess WE made. I wish I could see some evidence that our presence is helping in some way - or even that it _could_ help. But our propping up Allawi simply makes him illegitimate in the eyes of Iraqis. We’ve been trying to stabilize the situation for the past year and a half, sending in troops and pouring in money. And things are clearly far worse this summer than they were last summer. Remember when Admin spokesmen were saying the violence in Iraqi cities was no worse than in American cities? It wasn’t true then, of course, but at least a year ago, you could get people to believe it for a day or two. Now that wouldn’t fly even for a millisecond. Oh yeah, today is the [first anniversary of the day Richard Perle said this:](http://www.aei.org/events/contentID.20031003144313426/default.asp) > [@](#): > > A year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. Wonder if anyone’s called Perle up and asked him if he’s surprised. > [@](#): > > Sorry, I can’t do it…I WAS serious. I think that the majority of the LEADERSHIP ARE foriegn fighters…including AQ operatives. AQ isn’t the ONLY terrorist/paramilitary group in the ME, so if you read what I said it was " AQ and other terrorist organizations". I also think that there is a very large percentage of foriegn fighters operating in Iraq…if not the majority, then a very large minority. If you have facts to the contrary then by all means lets see them…otherwise your guess is as good as mine. 🙂 OK, let’s take the guess of [Juan Cole](http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109574019897377253), who’s a Middle East expert, tenured prof, reads the Arabic papers, and so forth: > [@](#): > > I dislike the US official tendency to blame most violence in Iraq on Zarqawi and other outsiders. I think 99% of it is Iraqi in character. But killing Shaikh al-Zaidi right in front of a Shiite mosque, or dumping his body there, does seem to be a deliberate provocation of the sort Tawhid earlier spoke of. Obviously there’s no way to get the ‘facts’, since nobody’s holding still to be interviewed, and it’s too dangerous for reporters to go wandering about anyway. So expert analysis seems to be the best thing going. At any rate, there’s 25 million Iraqis. It’s their country. We aren’t going to increase our troop levels much beyond the ~150K we’ve got there. They can sustain a hell of a lot more deaths than we can, because each of their deaths brings new recruits. The same isn’t true for us: instead, our troops are watching F911. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/51 "2004-09-22T22:05:28Z")
**furt, pervert**. You make sound arguments that the options I presented are not optimal. I’m not inclined to disagree. However that was never the point. The point was that these were better options than invasion, as per the OP. In particular the invasion aggressively squandered opportunities that it would have been worth exploring. A directly negotiated settlement and continued, perhaps diminished, sanctions are 2 of those. **RTfirefly**. The back channel negotiations may not have been viable as first drafted, but surely amending initial ideas is what negotiation is about. Was it not worth even contemplating? **pervert** quoted: > [@](#): > > _"A senior U.S. intelligence official said: “During the run up to the war there were a wide variety of people sending signals that some Iraqis might have an interest in negotiation. These signals came via a broad range of foreign intelligence services, other governments, third parties, charlatans and independent actors. Every lead that was at all plausible—and some that weren’t—were followed up. In the end, we were aware of no one in a position to make **any deal anywhere near acceptable to the United States** _.” The quote is redundant, as follows: What then was acceptable to the US? This merely takes us back to the opening question: Given what we now know, was the US position a sensible one? The US did not distinguish itself as a good faith party in its pre-war positions. Rather, what was “near acceptable” to the US is an outrageous standard to assess action by. Being as “acceptable” involved a large scale military victory and occupation in the ME. **Pervert** > [@](#): > > …These resources proved insufficient to enforce U.N. mandates or, _evidently_, to prevent Saddam Hussein from _continued investments_ in weapons of mass destruction." Evidently? Continued investment? I need read no further to spot a low credibility source. Regrettably no-one appears to have followed up on General Zinni, as per my earlier suggestion. So… [The Link:](http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040425/news_mz1e25zinni.html) > [@](#): > > **…What should we have done, then, in your view?** > > Continue to contain them. Containment worked. The president has said containment didn’t work. I disagree. First of all, containment worked with the Soviet Union, the Cubans, the North Koreans, thus far. Containment was done at very low cost… > > (_btw “acceptable” means:_) The worst-kept secret in Washington is that as soon as this administration came in there was talk about taking down Iraq from day one. It’s the worst-kept secret in Washington. There were Cabinet meetings where the deputy secretary of defense and others were pushing this. (italics are my gloss) Actually that Link isn’t a great one. To get to the full Zinni speech follow [The Better Link](http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/26/zinni/) > [@](#): > > Administering those sanctions was done pretty effectively I thought. In the entire U.S. Central Command, in my time there, on any given day we had less troops in the entire region than show up to work at the Pentagon any morning. Think about that. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, carriers, squadrons, battalions. On any given day … on an average day in CentCom, we had about 23,000 troops, soup to nuts. Logistics, fighters … and we ran that with these 23,000 troops. The whole region. To top it off, those troops were not assigned to CentCom. In other words, that structure wasn’t created to be part of CentCom, like the troops are in the Pacific Command or in the European Command. These were troops that were on rotation. > > It was, in my view, what we would call in the military an “economy of force theater” without these assigned forces. We had no American bases out there. We were sharing bases with allies in the region who provided for us. Any given year, those in the region ponied up $300 million to $500 million to support our presence out there. > … > We deliberately put our troops in positions and operating out of bases where everybody had to make a political commitment. That was the rule and everybody understood it. And we built an arrangement out there, a security arrangement, through the enforcement of those sanctions, that I think helped us create stability. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379/52 "2004-09-22T22:58:47Z")
> [@sevastopol](#): > > **furt, pervert**. You make sound arguments that the options I presented are not optimal. I’m not inclined to disagree. And you present options which clearly would have been better than war. The disagreement between us is perhaps the likelyhood of those options. > [@](#): > > However that was never the point. The point was that these were better options than invasion, as per the OP. In particular the invasion aggressively squandered opportunities that it would have been worth exploring. Fair enough. But opportunities were only “squandered” if they were real opportunities. The options were only better if they were real. For instance it would have been better if aliens had come down and turned the MENA into a flowing garden of milk nad honey. Obviously your scenario is not nearly so fantastic. But I think you see my point. > [@](#): > > The quote is redundant, as follows: What then was acceptable to the US? The US position was made public back then. Saddam had to go. the problem with the back door offer was not that it did not meet American demands. The problem was that it was not credible. You or I could have gone to an administration official with the same offer and would have been more quickly discounted. And rightly so. Do you have more information on this person that his offer may have been real? > [@](#): > > This merely takes us back to the opening question: Given what we now know, was the US position a sensible one? The US did not distinguish itself as a good faith party in its pre-war positions. Rather, what was “near acceptable” to the US is an outrageous standard to assess action by. Being as “acceptable” involved a large scale military victory and occupation in the ME. No, the US made specific demands. Ture it was not interested in negotiating those demands, but Bush felt that 12 years had been enough time to come clean and adhere to UN resolutions as well as the cease fire agreement. > [@](#): > > **Pervert** > > Evidently? Continued investment? I need read no further to spot a low credibility source. Regrettably no-one appears to have followed up on General Zinni, as per my earlier suggestion. So… Perhaps, but the numbers of troops are born out by your Zinni source. He says 23,000 they said 30,000. I’ll take Zinni’s number if you like. I was not trying to say that they proved the sanctions unsuccessful. I was using their figure for the sanction troop strength. Zinni make some good points about the sanction regime. It was effective in what it was designed to do, to a point. It certainly kept Saddam from attacking any other country conventionally. It did not prevent him from attempting to assasinate Bush senior, apperently, but that seemed like a minor flaw before 9-11. After that, the measure of acceptable risk from a despot willing to endorse international terrorism became much lower. I appreciate you links to Zinni’s speach. I had a time finding them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-the-u-s-iraq-and-the-world-be-better-off-if-wed-never-invaded/265379.md?page=2)