Yes, that was indeed a proposal: let's lift the sanctions as the inspectors couldn't find WMD's.

Lifting sanctions : bringing more money into the Iraqi economy, bringing a lot more foreigners into Iraq.
Contacts between normal Iraqi citizens and foreigners would have increased, making it more difficult for Saddam to do anything threatening to the world community.
Among the foreigners, lots of them could have reported to the CIA and ensure continuous discreet on-the-spot surveillance of Saddam's people, while at the same time, the economical exchange would have enabled a middle-class Iraqi society to grow.
Who knows, it would have been possible to locate Saddam more precisely which could have helped the CIA.
.