Define "Contain"

Could the United States, as an alternative to going to war in Iraq to depose Sadaam Hussein, have continued to “contain” him effectively?

That was a topic of discussion at a family gathering this last weekend. I was discussing the election and the war with my brother in-law. He’s no wild eyed lefty. He shares a military background with me. As do his brothers – Air National Guardsmen all - who, for the first time in their lives, are considering voting for a Democrat – John Kerry. They’re not gung ho Kerryites. They just have a beef with President Bush of his handling of the Iraq and even his decision to go to war in the first place. They strongly believe that we could have done more to “contain” Sadaam. I would guess that the stress that the war has put on National Guard unit factors into their displeasure with President Bush.

As these are men I respect and whose opinions are worth considering I gave this some thought this week. Could we have contained Sadaam satisfactorily in the post 9-11 era given that the terrorism ante had been raised considerably?

I, of course, had an opinion on this topic being the news junkie that I am. But I paused to give it further serious reflection. Here’s what I think:

It depends on what you mean by “contain”.

Prior to our deposing Sadaam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad by military force our containment of Sadaam had these features:

1.No fly-zone: air cover over 2/3 of Iraq with hundreds of sorties flown each year since 1991, putting our pilots at risk, with no foreseeable end in sight.
2.Sanctions: prohibiting Iraq from selling it’s most abundant and profitable resource. Did it stop Sadaam from an extravagant and profligate lifestyle of building luxury palaces in his own honor country wide? No. It did however result in the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children because of Sadaam’s greed and neglect of his people.
3.Oil for Food Program: the exception to the sanctions to remedy the child starvation. Did it save children? No. Instead it funded bribes to France, Germany, and Russia to keep the U.N. off Sadaam’s back. More that $10 Billion was siphoned from the program in a successful effort to corrupt both our allies and the U.N. to the bone to overlook Sadaam’s transgressions.
4.U.N. Resolutions: 17 in 12 years demanding that Sadaam comply with provisions of the peace deal that ended the Gulf War, including disarming and destroying the WMD’s. 17 resolutions demanding “serious consequences” that were rendered worthless by Sadaam’s gleeful defiance. Unenforced resolutions that threatened to render the United Nations authority as a world body irrelevant.
5.Weapons Inspections: the goal of which was not to find WMD’s. The burden of proof as established in the UN Resolutions was not on the inspectors to find them, but on Sadaam to furnish proof that he had in fact destroyed his weapons. Inspections that were inoperative after 1998 when Sadaam kicked the inspectors out of the country and Bill Clinton allowed that to stand. Inspections that were mocked when George Bush’s influence caused the reintroduction of inspectors in 2002 and Sadaam provided reams of useless data as evidence.

So, I’m left with two questions:

First, did the “containment” work?

Not in my opinion. Continuing the “containment” with our pilots continually at risk and Iraqis dying under our sanctions as Sadaam continued squandering their rationed national resources on palaces and death squads was immoral and irresponsible. Sadaam was free to operate in Iraq and bribe allies and international bodies to look the other way. He was free, in fact, to be a national sponsor of terror at least in the Middle East in general and possibly with al Qaida directly. This was not a tenable situation after 9/11.

Second, did the weapons inspections – as John Kerry has said – “work”?

Not in my opinion. Granted that stockpiles of WMD’s have not been located in Iraq since our invasion last year. However, there remain two possibilities for that: 1) that he had destroyed all of the WMD’s and 2) that he hid them or transferred them out of the country to Syria and Lebanon.

Not only did every intelligence source believe that Sadaam had WMD’s, but events since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 tell me that the second option is the most likely. Two examples:

- convoys of trucks were aerially photographed leaving Iraq into Syria in the weeks preceeding the invasion
- Terrorist al Zarqawi of Iraq was implicated in a bombing attempt at an embassy in Jordan using chemical weapons acquired from Syria with Iraqi origins

So after reflecting on my friend’s concerns about the necessity of the War in Iraq I’ve arrived at my conclusion. It was not tenable to continue to try to “contain” Sadaam Hussein in the post 9/11 era. Sadaam continued to be a threat that we could not tolerate. The invasion was both necessary and justified.