"As for Saddam's regime - if containment was a good policy last year and the year before that, it was a better policy this year;"
That statement is only true when looked at from Saddam Hussein's point of view. There was no such thing as a policy of containment. Containment was what some thought the failure to impliment UN Resolutions combined with the restraints imposed by UN Sanctions could achieve. That thinking was wrong on two counts:
1. It was hopelessly optimistic taking into account both the man and regime he led.
2. The sanctions were as effective as a collander and at some point they would have had to have been lifted. The result for the future could only have got worse not better.