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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (56472)	7/27/2004 12:21:21 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794399

There are basic points that are ignored 1. The rather important info that escaped the UN inspectors until Hussein Kamel defected in 1995, like 3 BW programs. 2. Saddam's non-cooperation with the UN inspections, especially 1991 - 1998 3. The absence of UN inspections from 1998 - 2003. Their resumption only thanks to an army on Saddam's borders. 4. The crumbling of the sanctions regime, the push at the UN to lift sanctions, and the failure to implement the smart sanctions regime. You would think from the article that smart sanctions had succeeded. 5. The rather large flow of money to Saddam in the form of Oil for Food kickbacks. The article spends a lot of time says how squeezed Saddam was, but ignores this money, which was something in the order of $100 billion! If Saddam spent the money bribing the Russians and building grandiose mosques instead of rebuilding his army, I really don't see how you can attribute this decision to sanctions. 6. The sanctions may have been onerous to Saddam, but were never onerous enough to get even a serious show of compliance. Saddam prefered to rely on bribes as his method for getting rid of them. This may have been rational from his point of view but doesn't speak to the success of the sanctions. 7. Saddam's ability to shift the pain of sanctions off himself and onto the Iraqi people, and to use their suffering to his benefit. All these points are glossed over or omitted altogether. 'Original' do you call it? 'Ludicrous' would be my word.