A couple of months back, I had arguments with other bloggers over my support for the US invasion of Iraq. I haven’t posted anything on Iraq for sometime, and now one of my antagonists, presumably just recovering from his honeymoon, has thrown down the gauntlet.
This of course means that I have to pick it up, lest people start thinking that it is out of a sense of shame at the US not finding any WMDs that I am silent. That is not true. I am shameless.

I am also realising that I am smart. In “The case” this is what I had written.

The humane course of action for the US to follow would have been to go in, remove Saddam Hussain, replace it by a decent regime, and get out.

Instead it chose to stop half-way through and impose sanctions on Iraq, in effect punishing Iraqis for the sins of their leader. They began a cat-and-mouse game with Saddam trying to get him to destroy his Weapons of Mass Destruction in exchange for removal of sanctions. Saddam did not co-operate. He surreptitiously continued his programme, evaded inspectors and made use of schisms within the Security Council to get away with it.

Quite clearly, the only way to stop him is to remove him from power.

Clever ain’t I? These justifications remain valid even if no WMDs are found

Why? Because remember the “World Community” had 3 alternatives, not 2.

1. Lift Sanctions.
   Costs:
   • Iraqis continue to suffer from Saddam and his sons’ tyranny
   • Saddam continues to pursue WMDs
   • Others get encouraged by his lenient treatment and try to develop WMDs on their own.
   • Saddam himself finds other neighbours to attack, use his WMDs or create mayhem generally
   Benefits:
   • Iraqis can no longer blame sanctions for their suffering.
   • The world gets cheaper oil (cheaper than if sanctions are in place)

2. Keep Sanctions in place indefinitely
   Costs:
   • Iraqis continue to suffer from Saddam and his sons’ tyranny
   • Iraqis suffer more because of the sanctions
   • Success at checking WMDs still uncertain.
   • The world (including the US) pays a higher price for oil
   • Muslims will continue to hate the US and it might lead to more terrorism.
   Benefits:
   • Saddam may be in check

3. Attack and remove Saddam from power.
   Costs:
   • Some Iraqis die (both soldiers and civilians)
   • American soldiers die
   • There will be chaos in Iraq for a short period as a result. Iraqis may suffer.
   • There may be so much chaos that Iraqis take refuge in an Iran style theocracy
   • Success might go to the Americans’ head and they start intervening in places where they shouldn’t
   • There may be more terrorist attacks because Muslims elsewhere may be angrier than they are now.
   Benefits:
   • Iraq will be permanently rid of WMDs
   • The world (including the US)will get cheaper oil
   • If a democracy and a civilised government is established there, Iraqis will be happy
   • If a democracy and a civilised government is established there, not only will the world get cheaper oil, Iraq?s will actually benefit from selling oil

The best alternative to war was not peace. It was continued inspections and tighter sanctions. There is no doubt at all that he had a WMD programme.

Only two smoking guns were found during all the UNSCOM inspections in Iraq in the 1990s. The first — Iraq’s nuclear weapons complex — came quickly in the summer and autumn of 1991. We were going after very large physical complexes that had been designed to deceive spy satellites — but whose purpose could be detected by inspectors armed with good intelligence and aided by key Iraqi defectors.

In the next six years of UNSCOM inspections only one other such discovery was made — when the existence of an Iraqi biological weapons program was finally uncovered in 1995. But it is often forgotten that the weapons themselves were not found by the inspectors. Iraq told the inspectors that it had destroyed the biological munitions, which, it said, had been stored inside abandoned railroad tunnels and buried along the runways at two military airfields. Even the best inspectors have almost no chance of discovering hidden weapons sites such as these in a country the size of Iraq.

Given this evidence, if WMDs are not found now, it simply means that sanctions were effective in stopping him, not that Saddam had an Ashoka-style change of heart.
But can anyone tell me why a short war with so few casualties was a worse option than continued sanctions? The list of “costs”, if you notice are highly uncertain. Unless things go horribly wrong, they won’t have to be paid, whereas the costs of keeping the sanctions on indefinitely are certain and are already being paid.