The current crisis has been a long time in the making. The international community has given Iraq every possible opportunity to comply with its obligations. For more than ten years Iraq has been under sanctions intended to compel it to comply. When it became clear that these sanctions were causing undue hardship to the population of Iraq without having the desired effect on the regime, the system of sanctions was reformed so as to minimise the hardship on the civilian population of Iraq and focus the impact as closely as possible on Saddam Hussein's administration and its military support.