Too bad his first boss just sat on his ass and did nothing except to let the coalition fall apart.
We have an armed and increasingly well armed enemy.
He is a despot whose chances of having his weapons stolen, distributed or granted away to smaller terrorists is basically 100%. We know he has helped terrorists for years.
He has broken the arrangements he agreed to for the truce that allowed him to stay in power almost continuously.
If he knows we are coming after him he may strike us.
But as ObL demonstrated so well a year ago, if we simply give our enemies time, they will not use that time to repent of their intentions towards us and others.
To hold back out of fear, while Saddam increases capability without increasing his responsibility is only to postpone the realization of that fear, not to alleviate it.
Saddam is not contained at this time. He is getting hege revenues from oil sales and most of those revenues are outside of any sanction reporting regime.
He is certainly not spending that money on his domestic consumer needs.
He is spending it on something.
The something he likes best is in the area of weapons.
Putting off responding to this reality will be stupid as if FDR had simply accepted Pearl Harbor and hoped that more would not come later.
Ed