(Washington Post)- It is clear that Iraq has not complied with Resolution 1441, which offered it a "final opportunity" to voluntarily disarm. Neither the UN weapons inspectors nor any permanent member of the council contends that Iraq has "fully" cooperated, as the resolution requires. It would be a mistake for the United States and its allies, confronted with continued intransigence, to shrink again from decisive action in Iraq. The U.S. should lead a force to remove Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and locate and destroy its chemical and biological weapons and its nuclear program. The Iraqi regime poses a threat not just to the U.S. but to global order. The removal of Saddam Hussein would advance the task of containing the spread of weapons of mass destruction to rogue states. A continued failure to act would send dictators and terrorists a devastating message about the impotence of the U.S. and the UN, and would encourage extremists in their rush for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Those who advocate containment through inspections ignore that strategy's costly failure during the 1990s. Inspectors traipsed through Iraq for seven years as Baghdad defied or ignored one Security Council resolution after the next. The most dangerous chemical and biological weapons were not discovered for four years, and then only with the help of a defector. The people of Iraq and its region would benefit from an end to the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, who is guilty of some of the most terrible war crimes and human rights violations of the past 50 years. He has tortured, gassed, and slaughtered his people and has invaded two neighboring nations. His removal would free millions of Iraqis from deprivation and oppression and make possible a broader movement to reshape the Arab Middle East.
2003-02-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive