Kerry has said he did not dirctly sanction the Iraq war; so as to strengthen Bush’s hand vis-via Iraq, he merely authorized the use of force.  The underlying implication being that he believed, or was misled to believe Saddam needed to be disarmed and like any good American he believed the president would only go to war if dipolmacy had been exhausted.  At various times he has said the case for needing to rid Saddam of weapons he never had was overstated.  More often, though, he has said that the President did not exhaust dipolmacy; he kicked the weapons inspectors out of Iraq before they were willing to render a final verdict.  With these arguments to fall back on when asked by Chris Mathews “Are you one of the anti-war candidates?” KERRY responded by saying “I am -- Yes, in the sense that I don’t believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely.” (MSNBC’s “Hardball,” 1/6/04)”

Kerry’s position is pure spin.  “Disarming” Iraq through peaceful means was never a live option.  There was only ever two options available once Bush took the UN route, either have the sanctions regime and the policy of containment collapse, or regime change.  You see, if dipolmacy had been exhausted and the weapons inspectors had pronouced that Saddam had indeed disarmed, then not only would the case for war collapse, so too would the case for continuing sanctions.  The US would have been left hanging onto UN resolution 687 paragraph 21, which states that inorder for sanctions to be lifted the Iraqis had to comply with “all relevant UN resolutions” including the Americans and British argued UN resolution 688.  The impetus for the creation of Iraqi Kurdistan and the two no fly zones, 688 condemned “the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq.”   (Ironically, the Bush administration had been very reluctant to pass 688 in the first place, but was pressured into it by the weight of public opinion.)   And the Russians, French and Chinese would have hammered with 687 paragraph 22, which seems to allow for the lifting of sanctions once Iraq has proved to have been rid of WMD.

What Kerry could claim is that Bush/Powell recklessly forced the issue by going the UN route and having the inspectors sent back in.  (Although, presented in the press as being the most skeptical of the lot, Powell evidently believed that there was probably something there and the weapons inspectors would not give Saddam a passing grade.)  He and others had no choice other than to sanction the use of force, or have the US’s entire Iraq policy collapse.