Lifting sanctions
Sanctions were obviously hurting the Iraqi people more than its power.
Lifting them would have :
1) given Iraqis economical growth.
2) Allowed many more people from outside (businessmen, journalists), in the country which would have:
a) prevented Saddam from going on with his massacres, unnoticed.
b) enabled the discovery of any project in Iraq to produce nuclear weapons.
Had the oil for food scandal been discovered before lifting the sanctions, I can't say what the consequences would have been.
A closed society has much more chances of producing dangerous things than an open one.
Raoul