Dan wrote:
The question at hand originally was whether anything but invasion would
topple Hussein. It seems pretty clear to me that he would stay in power
for the foreseeable future, since 11 years of sanctions and inspections did not push him out. At the time, if you remember, I thought that we could
continue to contain him, and that would be the best option. We'd have to
keep the no fly zones, of course, but that was doable. My point is that I
thought that anyone who held this viewpoint, as I did, needed to take
responsibility for the cost of that viewpoint in terms of human lives and
human suffering. I justified advocating allowing this to continue because I thought that the mess that would be made of the aftermath would cause so much harm that the war.
My point was (however poorly I made it) that the invasive inspections that Hussein allowed were a measure of his weakness and his vulnerability to measures other than a full out invasion.
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
