How to Make a War When There's Nothing Worth Fighting For, Part II

By late summer of 2002 Pres. Bush was ready to take his case to the UN, demanding that the international governing body step in to enforce the treaties and agreements that had been enacted following the end of the first Gulf War. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein was repeatedly ignoring UN resolutions and his defiance was undermining the credibility of the United Nations. Another successful tactic used throughout the buildup to the invasion of Iraq by the White House was to divert the onus of responsibility for diplomacy onto the UN. Pres. Bush effectively asserted that the United Nations would become an irrelevant institution if it failed to enforce the resolutions against Iraq. After making the United Nations almost entirely responsible for a practically impossible diplomatic solution, Pres. Bush then pulled out his trump card, insisting that should the UN fail to enforce the resolutions against Iraq, the United States would act unilaterally to invade with purpose of disarming the country.

Facing what now appeared to be a very real possibility of a US invasion, Iraq agreed to allow the UN weapons inspectors to return unconditionally. The UN Security Council followed suit in November by unanimously passing Iraq Resolution 1441, which officially declared the country to be direct violation of previous UN resolutions, ordered a new series of weapons inspections, and warned Saddam Hussein that Iraq would face "serious consequences" for failure to comply.

On November 18, 2002 the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission headed by Hans Blix returned to Iraq to begin new inspections for weapons. Official reports indicated that their inspections were sometimes met with the full cooperation of the Iraqis, while other times they received no cooperation at all. The Bush administration discounted the reports that indicated no presence of banned weapons and began to push hard for an official authorization from the UN Security Council to forcibly removed Saddam Hussein from power.