[Chris Alger]

Rhetoric aside, no one seriously believes that Saddam's violation of UN disarmament resolutions, by itself, justifies war. If his potential for aggression (internally and externally) can be contained without complete disarmament, then it makes no difference whether he's 50% disarmed or 100%. As it stands right now, Saddam has remained boxed in a no-fly zone for 10 years, his small airforce is at half-strength, his army is 1/3 the size it was in 1990, his armored divisions are in disrepair and he has no Navy. It is not likely that Saddam's army can even train for an invasion. Contrast this to a large US military presence in the Gulf and surrounding region that wasn't there when he invaded Kuwait. Further, his invasion of Iran was supported by the U.S. other western states, where any invasion he launched against anyone would be met with immediate annihilation by the U.S. All evidence suggests that Saddam has been and will continue to be relatively powerless and deterred.

There are three arguments you hear to the contrary:

1. Saddam is so dangerous that any trace of chemical or biological weapons in his possession present grave threats to the U.S.

Response: Saddam doesn't need WMD to terrorize the US, as 9/11 and Oklahoma City showed. Nor does he have any record of engaging in or supporting terrorism against the US. The rhetoric from the Bush adminsitration to the contrary is just that.

2. Saddam's material breaches of Security Council resolutions undermine the rule of international law.

This is a better point, but the U.S.'s refusal to allow UN resolutions to be enforced against its client states make it irrelevant.

3. We should be "on the safe side" and go to war as long as any risk remains.

This is criminally immoral but also asssumes that war is risk-free. War in the middle east could just as easily unleash a wave of terrorism and WMD acquisition that would not otherwise occur.

Two more points:

1. The US cannot be trusted to refrain from invading Iraq even if Iraq disarms. Complete disarmament of all conventional and WMD would therefore render the people of Iraq as well as Saddam vulnerable to a war of aggression. This is part of the current dispute over the range of Iraq's missiles.

2. The disarmament process has only been taking place in earnest for a few years, although it has achieved concrete results. It could take a decade or more, but the trend is for Iraq to become grandually more impotent.