And despite what Dobbins wrote, oil-for-food failed to neutralize Saddam. As the White House noted in 2003, ?former U.N. Human Rights Special Rapporteur Max Van der Stoel?s report in April 1998 stated that Iraq had executed at least 1,500 people during the previous year for political reasons. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape.?

Plus, Saddam paid blood money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Since that money was coming from the U.N.?s oil-for-food program, it clearly failed ?to prevent Hussein from again becoming a threat to his neighbors,? as Dobbins claims.

The former state department official did hit the nail on the head with one point. ?U.N. sanctions against Iraq, including the oil-for-food program, are worth close scrutiny not just because some of that money was stolen but because, taken as a whole, this represents one of the most successful uses of international sanctions on record.? That?s sad but true.

Sanctions have failed to contain North Korea?s missile program, failed to isolate Iran, and didn?t deter Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic -- although military action did.

And they certainly failed to protect the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein. Sanctions usually don?t work; that?s why the United States is taking a more aggressive approach against international threats. ?To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively,? is the way the 2002 National Security Strategy -- drafted by Condoleezza Rice -- puts it.

In the end, Dobbins seems to think oil-for-food was no problem because, as he puts it, ?no American funds were stolen.? Under him, the State Department?s message to other world leaders might read: ?Be as corrupt as you like, steal as much as you can, torture and kill as many as you wish, as long as no American money is involved.?

But Rice will instead be carrying President Bush?s message -- the one he?s delivered to Afghanistan, Iraq and now Ukraine: ?We will support democracy and freedom, and oppose dictators.? That?s the right side of history to be on. Let?s hope it?s a message that Rice can sell to our own diplomatic corps.