Quote of note:

The situation was this: After the Persian Gulf war, the Security Council had imposed sanctions on Iraq until it could verify that Saddam Hussein had disposed of all his weapons of mass destruction. He refused to cooperate, so sanctions remained, impoverishing and starving ordinary Iraqis, but not the Baathist elite.

Um…no.

Saddam disarmed years ago, remember?

And he said so years ago. Complained that he'd shown everyone everything and they were just using the sanctions as a political club.

Anyway…

America's Man at the United Nations
By WILLIAM SHAWCROSS

London

THE growing demands that Kofi Annan resign as secretary general of the United Nations are preposterous. For him to do so would be extremely damaging not only to his organization but also to the United States.

I say this as someone who strongly supported the American-led effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein; as someone who, despite the heartbreaking mistakes, still supports the coalition's attempt to build a decent society in Iraq. I also think that the United Nations has repeatedly failed the Iraqi people. But I know that Kofi Annan feels the same way. Years ago, when I was writing a book about the United Nations, he told me that in 1992, he had warned the newly elected secretary general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, that the United Nations had to do far more to resolve the Iraq situation.