Oh, the Lack of Indignation

I'm imagining the thoughts of someone who is really horrified by the U.S. war on Saddam, on the basis of the doctrine of a pre-emtive strike, on the unilateral militaristic solution to what, in this person's view, should have been solved by international consensus and world-governing institutions.

I'm trying to picture the alternative world that this person wishes to achieve, in which there's a better solution than Bush's to a problem such as Saddam presented. I'm assuming this person is a realist, not a blinder-clad Bush-hater who thinks there are no real problems in the world except That Man in the White House.

And I have to think that person's vision of a working world includes a belief in sanctions systems, such as the one the U.N. attempted to use to contain Saddam's weapons programs. And I have to think that person, reading the Duelfer report, would be more concerned with the utter failure of that system, in the case of Iraq; he or she would be even more concerned with that failure than with some recycled indignation over the bad guesses made by U.S. intelligence agencies in 2002.

Stephen Handelman is indignant. He writes, in How greed ruined embargo on Iraq:

Saddam was able to conduct his deception with the active help of other countries, which, in many cases, profited from the veil of illusion Saddam threw up around himself, and who thus helped make a mockery of the U.N. sanctions. It is only fair to conclude as well that those countries, by acting as enablers for Saddam's deceptions, helped contribute to the tense climate that led to war — if not helping to provoke the war itself.

How? The report reveals an underground web of bribes and kickbacks through which Saddam used the U.N. Oil For Food program to purchase the arms he thought he needed to rebuild his shattered weapons complex once the sanctions ended, while buying the support of certain countries for an end to the sanctions themselves.

The global network included Russia, France, Jordan, Belarus, Syria, Yemen and North Korea. It roped in powerful politicians and private firms in many parts of the world.

Just one example: Iraq and Belarus created a fictional airline to move weapons parts under the guise of humanitarian aid.

Here's another: Former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, according to the report, received vouchers for nearly 11 million barrels of oil on the understanding he would influence the French government to push for lifting Iraq sanctions.

In 2002 alone, Iraq concluded 35 illicit arms deals.

...

"Iraq was designing missile systems with the assumption that sanctioned material would be readily available," said the report.

The report's findings will — or should — force a rethinking in the White House. But they put a heavy burden on all U.N. member states to re-examine sanctions policy.

Sanctions can be some of the most effective instruments short of war to weaken unjust or "rogue" governments. But only if they are enforced transparently.

If we believe in them, we should do everything possible to ensure that they are never abused so blatantly again. That means pursuing criminal penalties against those who did so in Iraq.

"Knowledge of your opponent's weakness is a weapon in itself," Saddam told his captors.

The few weapons Saddam actually possessed were in the end his most effective: the duplicity, greed and dishonesty of the global community.

So, outside Handelman, where's the call for "criminal penalties" in this case? Isn't it as important as the call to put Bush and Rice on trial as "War criminals," if the goal is to achieve a perfect world where force is a rare last resort? Indignation, anyone?