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Ten Reasons Why America Should Invade Iraq
by William Sjostrom
March 2003

(1) The first reason is, on its own, more than sufficient to justify an invasion. The big reason was put, I think simply and unanswerably, in [President George W. Bush's] speech Monday night:
The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological, or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other. The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat, but we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety.
George Bush is hardly an eloquent speaker, but here he got the job done. Iraq is an extremely dangerous threat to the United States. The government of the United States has an obligation to defend its citizens, and it should do so.

(2) It is fair to ask whether there is an alternative to war. Is it possible for Saddam to be contained and deterred, in the same way that the Soviet Union was in large measure contained and deterred during the Cold War? This strikes me as unlikely. Saddam has invaded Iran and Kuwait, and both times was beaten. He does not have a clear sense of what he can accomplish. The New York Times reported earlier this month that Saddam was lecturing his commanders that US military force was inconsequential, because the much vaunted US aircraft carriers had no wheels to travel to Baghdad. This, mind you, to military commanders who knew better. Perhaps more importantly, Saddam recklessly passed up an easy way out of this problem. Given the high degree of reluctance in the [UN] Security Council for actual war, he could have forestalled war indefinitely by cooperating with inspections and releasing a modestly accurate count of his weapons of mass destruction. Supplies, after all, can be replaced. But he stayed recklessly stubborn. You can deter someone who is rational enough to connect his behavior with its consequences. You cannot deter someone who is not.

(3) Even if Saddam could be contained directly, he can still wage war through terrorist proxies. Much of the world is still in denial about Saddam's terrorist links.

(4) Saddam's brutality is legendary. The report from Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP from Cynon Valley, in the London Times yesterday made for sickening reading. It takes a strong stomach to read about people being thrown into a shredding machine, head first if they were lucky, feet first if they were unlucky, the killings supervised by Saddam's son Qusay. Brutality is not necessarily a sign of irrationality, but the pathological intensity of Saddam's brutality is certainly suggestive.

(5) An invasion means that innocent civilians will die, without doubt, but that is by itself not an argument. The question is always: what is the alternative? Innocent civilians are dying as I write this. They die of hunger and disease, and from Saddam's famous torture chambers. They also suffer life-long debilitating disfigurement, rape, humiliation, and simple day-to-day fear. War often leads to civilian deaths, but war is sadly necessary. The landing at Normandy in World War II led to civilian deaths. But would you say to Anne Frank: "Sorry, but we can't risk innocent lives, so we aren't coming, and don't forget to write when you get to Bergen-Belsen"? She did not survive, but the war ensured that many others did.

(6) It is true that much of the Security Council thinks the invasion will proceed without UN authorization. A resolution before the Security Council was withdrawn because of a clear threat of a veto by France, and apparently Russia and China as well. I think this is regrettable, because international agreement to remove Saddam would be desirable. But it would be desirable because it would indicate a world that takes the threat of Saddam seriously. Mr. Blair's speech yesterday to the House of Commons spells out the sorry history of the failure of the UN [in Iraq]. In April 1991, Iraq was given, as part of the terms of the cease fire (and note it was a cease fire, not an end to the war) 15 days to submit a full and final declaration of its weapons of mass destruction. Twelve years and seventeen absolute last chance UN resolutions later, he has responded, not merely with a series of declarations that have been simple lies, but with a build-up of his weapons. At this point, only the utterly delusional seriously believe Saddam's repeated claims that he has no such weapons.

(7) That the UN ought to be important does not make it so. There was no UN sanction for NATO action in Kosovo that ended genocide against Muslims. There was no UN sanction for the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979 that ended the genocide of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, or for the Tanzanian invasion of Uganda the same year that ended the murderous regime of Idi Amin.

(8) It is up to the nations of the UN to make [the organization] relevant. Security Council Resolution 1441 threatened "serious consequences" if Saddam did not fully disclose his weapons of mass destruction. He [did] not do so, and yet on Monday, French Foreign Minister de Villepin said an invasion would have "serious consequences" for the Middle East and the world. At this stage it is clear what Mr. de Villepin means by "serious consequences": exactly nothing. If the nations of the UN will not take their responsibilities seriously, they have no cause to complain if the US does.

(9) Further delay in dealing with Saddam is dangerous, not merely in Iraq, but everywhere free democracies face up to dangerous tyrannies. Every time there is a delay, another tyrant thinks the democracies can be pushed. Mr. Blair noted in his speech yesterday, I think correctly, that in the end, they cannot, but the belief makes the inevitable war even more destructive.

(10) [Winston] Churchill wrote in The Gathering Storm, the first volume of his history of World War II,
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight will all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
The threat posed today by Saddam Hussein is not comparable to the threat posed by Hitler in 1940. Is it worth the lives of millions to let it get that way?
Dr. William Sjostrom is a senior lecturer in economics at the Center for Applied Social Policy at UCC and publisher of the web log www.atlanticblog.com