In response to this: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/735tahyk.asp Actually, it has considerably increased the chances of war in the region: Saddam provided stability to Iraq by binding together three different peoples. That you now have these people living in a land whose borders are absolutely artifical is not a recipe for stability. Turkey has promised to invade should the Kurds declare independence. The threat of an islamic state looms large, or failing that, widespread unrest precipitated by those who want an islamic state. The talk of Saddam's pattern of aggression ignores the fact that, for the last 13 years, he had behaved himself. His military was weak and he had no WMD. The "immediate military threat" the article mentions is absurd crap. The article's justification is based on alarmist answers to hypothetical questions. It is based the thoroughly erroneous assumption that he would of obtained WMD. That he would become aggressive(having apparently forgotten what happened in Gulf War) and deploy these weapons against other countries. By daisy-chaining a collection of what-ifs together the article comes to the conclusion that invasion was a necessity. It does not seem to address the possibility of inspections combined with the credible threat of force. Given that most of the world, a good few of the security counsel members, and the actual weapons inspectors desired this, that is rather strange. Consider also that Berger's reasoning was done pre 9/11. It did not take into account that one day there may be the political will to mobilise US forces in an effort to intimidate Saddam into compliance. However, Berger thought that Saddam would never let the weapons inspectors back in. "Saddam expelled the U.N. inspectors in response to the attack, and they did not return until November 2002." Crap: Butler withdrew the inspectors in anticipation of the attack and because he thought Saddam was not cooperating. His non-cooperation was quite possibly because of the espionage that the UN WI were indulged in.
