Eighty days ago, on November 8, in a historic display of unity,
the UN Security Council gave Iraq a final opportunity to voluntarily
disarm.
The purpose of UN Resolution 1441 was disarmament. Inspections
are a means to an end and they cannot be expected to succeed when a
country has an active program of denial and deception, as is the case
with Iraq.
For 11 years before Resolution 1441, Saddam Hussein's regime
refused to make the strategic and political decision to disarm itself
of WMD. To this day, the regime continues to defy the will of the
international community.
There is an entire state apparatus in Iraq whose sole purpose
is to obstruct the inspections. Inspectors are outnumbered by minders,
sometimes by as many as five-to-one, each time they head out on a
mission.