Utter nonsense. Saddam never kicked out UN WMD inspectors.
Actually, he did. Apart from his active blocking of the inspectors' efforts, harken back to 1997, when Baghdad stepped up its obstructionist activities. Iraqi officials in June jeopardized the safety of weapons inspectors by grabbing at the controls of UNSCOM helicopters while they were airborne, and Iraq blocked access to several sites. The Security Council responded June 21 by adopting Resolution 1115, condemning Iraq's actions. In September, Iraq barred weapons inspections at locations it described as “presidential sites.” The Security Council responded October 23 with Resolution 1134, which again demanded that Iraq cooperate with weapons inspectors, but the message sent is significantly weakened by the fact that five Security Council members—most notably China, France, and Russia—abstain from the vote.
Days later, Iraq, perhaps bolstered by the evident rift in the Security Council, announced it would not deal at all with U.S. weapons inspectors, ordered them to leave the country, and then blocked inspection teams including US inspectors. UNSCOM and the IAEA withdrew most of their inspectors in response, and the Security Council called on Iraq November 12 to rescind its decision and refrain from imposing any conditions on inspectors.
The United States built up its military forces in the region and threatened action, but its aggressive stance was not backed by the Security Council. Averting a possible US attack, Russia negotiated the return of all inspectors to Iraq November 20. In spite of its pledge to cooperate with inspectors, Baghdad informed UNSCOM in mid-December that the so-called “presidential sites” were still off-limits to inspections.
As for the Butler book, "War is a Racket," well, yes, it certainly is, and it was more so at the time Butler was making a good living giving speeches ... Butler was a good Marine who'd had enough of war, a person who fully realized the true cost of war: dead young Americans (and dead foreign civilians). But, if you're gonna quote Butler, don't leave out this one:
"WELL, it's a racket, all right.
A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers –
yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket – that and nothing else."
The fact is, though, international relations, U.S. business and the global economy just aren't as simple as they were back in 1913 and 1919 ...
