Now that the UN inspection teams are in Iraq, and as the December 8 deadline approaches for Iraq to declare all its weapons of mass destruction and the facilities for producing them, the world must reckon with a hard question: what is to be done if Saddam Hussein does not obey the Security Council resolution on his weapons of mass destruction? There is a chance that the Iraqi president will comply, but the Council promised "serious consequences" if he does not. What should these be? We know from experience that neither political pressures nor economic sanctions hurt Saddam enough. Only military action will do.
Now that the UN inspection teams are in Iraq, and as the December 8 deadline approaches for Iraq to declare all its weapons of mass destruction and the facilities for producing them, the world must reckon with a hard question: what is to be done if Saddam Hussein does not obey the Security Council resolution on his weapons of mass destruction? There is a chance that the Iraqi president will comply, but the Council promised "serious consequences" if he does not. What should these be? We know from experience that neither political pressures nor economic sanctions hurt Saddam enough. Only military action will do.