Charles,
SNIP
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>As far as risking lives goes, that's a tough one. I do think sometimes a choice that looks like war vs peace can actually be a choice of war on our terms or war later on somebody else's. I think the concern about Saddam was about a general war in the middle east. Everyone seems to forget there are people in Tel Aviv who had already decided at what point Saddam was going to have to be stopped. Properly armed, he was going to try the Salah a'din thing again. A great number of lives would be at risk. Remember what the casualty figures were in Iran-Iraq. Now add Israel and a whole lot of nukes and sarin.
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SNIP

But isn't "properly armed" the key here?
Saddam had northern and southern "no fly" zones for years.
Saddam had an embargo that hurt him more than we thought despite the cheating that was going on.
Sure, he was agitating to lift the embargo, but that doesn't mean that he would have succeeded or that success would have opened up the flow of arms full bore.
I also have to wonder just what a "small force" would have proven, exactly, against Saddam. Not much as far as attacking North Korea is concerned, for sure. Don't know about iran, but suspect that they are better equipped than Saddam was.
Wolfowitz' heart may have been "in the right place", but it really didn't fit "today". [I've seen both Wolfowitz and Perle being interviewed many times and one thing I have to give both of them is that they are very honest in their words]
Wolfowitz may well be brilliant in his assessments of future situations, but unfortnately he delved into areas where his acumen is more questionable. In fact most of his prognostications proved to be dead wrong. His continued tenure, and by definition Rumsfeld's too, remains a source of amazement. It's one thing to allow a mistake and afford the opportunity for redemption but surely the death/maining of thousands of good people should have some impact on such thinking.

Jim