If only we had waited to invade! Saddam really wanted WMD, after all!
Friday, September 17, 2004 at 12:55PM ■"Iraq Study Finds Desire For Arms, But Not Capacity: No Large-Scale Program; Draft Is Said to Cite Intent by Hussein to Act if U.N. Eased Curbs," by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 17 September 2004, p. A1.
This lengthy government report basically confirms what we've heard before: no evidence of any big WMD program in Iraq at the time of invasion. The new part is the assertion that Saddam displayed a clear intent to seek WMD if the UN ever lifted its sanctions.
Aha! Say some. That proves the sanctions worked.
Yes, they worked. They also probably killed a half-million Iraqis under the age of 5 because of lack of access to enough nutrition and medical care (don't believe me, ask UNICEF, which generated the estimate.
So we could have chosen to either keep on killing 50,000 Iraqi kids a year or let Saddam get back to his goal of WMD.
Or we could have stopped all those deaths, losing 1k of our own people in the process and triggering a deadly insurgency that has killed a mere fraction of that horrific number, AND removed Saddam from power along with the threat of his getting his hands on WMD.
Ah, but who cares about 50,000 Iraqi kids dying a year? I guess I missed that footage in Michael Moore's movie.
Don't tell me those brave American military personnel sacrificed their lives for nothing.
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