William Smith at Conservative Blogger has a great post on the status of Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions over the years at the time the U.S. went to war with Iraq. Of course, Romney answered a question in the last debate about whether it was a mistake to go to war in Iraq by pointing to the information we didn't have at the time because of Saddam's failure to fully comply with these resolutions. Mr. Smith even had the opportunity to ask a follow-up question at an Ask Mitt Anything Event:
Romney is absolutely right about this. Hussein was trying to walk a fine line between allowing inspectors in and giving up the deterrence that came from others thinking they had WMD. Incidentally, I was enrolled in an Arms Control class at UCLA when this was going on and regularly debated whether we should go to war in Iraq. One interesting notion that never came up: that no WMD were to be found in Iraq at all.
Timotheus, that was a very interesting video. I had heard a couple of people getting upset about what Mitt said, but I hadn't really understood why, because I knew what he was getting at. I am glad that Mitt was able to explain his position better and in a way that makes sense to everyone, because I know that I, for one, definitely remember the inspectors not being able to access everywhere, and having the palaces blocked off, etc.
You're right: At that point, no one even conceived of the idea that Saddam perhaps didn't have WMD. Why not let the inspectors in if there wasn't something there you were trying to hide? Our world would be so much different right now if Saddam had let us in.
Anyway, thanks for the great post - I appreciate it. :-)
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