Quote:
Originally Posted by aimeecc
The UN was not making progress, and it cannot be ascertained that Iraq did not have WMD, considering for several decades Iraq did.
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The UN had made tremendous progress. However we never realized how successful UN inspectors had been until after the invasion. By 1995, Saddam had even destroyed all his hidden weapons. This in part because his in-laws had defected and told the complete story.
In 1998, Clinton successfully destroyed any remaining facilities that could have produced any advanced weapons.
Saddam was bluffing. He had to. He had no serious military capacity. In hindsight, he may have been on the edge of a coup d'etat. He was a threat to no one. But even more obvious, Saddam never had any interest in attacking the US. It is well known that Saddam was doing everything possible to restore American support without exposing to enemies such as Iran how militarily weak he really was. Saddam's entire agenda even before 1990 was to nurture American support. That gets lost among those who hear extremist spin.
UN inspectors were far more effective than the UN inspectors even knew. Saddam was completely defanged - a threat to nobody. He was bluffing which was his only option.