"Should the U.S. have attacked Iraq?"
The PRO and CON statements below give a five minute introduction to the debate on the U.S.-Iraq war.
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| PRO Iraq War | CON Iraq War |
| 1. United Nations Resolutions Violations | |
PRO: "The United States has clear authority under international law to use force against Iraq under present circumstances. -- John Bellinger, III |
CON: "The Security Council did agree to one resolution, UNSC Resolution 1441, that called on Iraq to disarm its weapons of mass destruction and cooperate with UN inspectors, but did not include an authorization for the use of force against Iraq. In Resolution 1441, the Security Council indicated that it would remain 'seized' of the matter, meaning that it continued to assert its authority as the final international arbiter of the use of force in the matter. When the US went back to the Security Council for a second and follow-up resolution to 1441, this one to provide authorization to proceed to war against Iraq, the Security Council refused to comply with the US demand for such authorization on the grounds that it wanted to give the UN inspectors more time to finish their work." -- David Krieger |
| 2. Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction | |
PRO: "The point is that this document [UNMOVIC March 2003 Report] conclusively shows that Iraq had and still has the capability to manufacture these kinds of weapons, that Iraq had and still has the capability to manufacture not only chemical but biological weapons, and that Iraq had and still has literally tens of thousands of delivery systems, including increasingly capable and dangerous unmanned aerial vehicles." -- Colin Powell |
CON: "My view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.
I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense; that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarized chemical and biological weapons there." -- David Kay |
| 3. Human Rights Concerns in Iraq | |
PRO: "It is fashionable to sneer at the moral case for liberating an Iraqi people long brutalized by Saddam's rule. Critics insist mere oppression was not sufficient reason for war, and in any case that it was not Bush's reason. In fact, of course, it was one of Bush's reasons, and the moral and humanitarian purpose provided a compelling reason for a war to remove Saddam... For the people of Iraq, the war put an end to three decades of terror and suffering. The mass graves uncovered since the end of the war are alone sufficient justification for it." -- Robert Kagan |
CON: "In considering the criteria that would justify humanitarian intervention, the most important, as noted, is the level of killing: was genocide or comparable mass slaughter underway or imminent? Brutal as Saddam Hussein's reign had been, the scope of the Iraqi government's killing in March 2003 was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention. We have no illusions about Saddam Hussein's vicious inhumanity. -- Human Rights Watch |
| 4. Possible Ties Between Iraq, al-Qaeda, and 9/11 | |
PRO: "Since we began after September 11th, we do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad. We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior level contacts going back a decade, and of possible chemical and biological agent training. And when I say contacts, I mean between Iraq and al Qaeda. The reports of these contacts have been increasing since 1998. We have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq, reciprocal nonaggression discussions. We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapon of -- weapons of mass destruction capabilities. We do have -- I believe it's one report indicating that Iraq provided unspecified training relating to chemical and/or biological matters for al Qaeda members. There is, I'm told, also some other information of varying degrees of reliability that supports that conclusion of their cooperation."
-- Donald Rumsfeld |
CON: "[Usama] Bin Ladin also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan [1991-1994], despite his opposition to [Saddam] Hussein's secular regime. Bin Ladin had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Bin Ladin associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." -- National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (aka 9/11 Commission) |
| 5. Oil as a Reason for Invading Iraq | |
PRO: "I base that on the fact that there is $5 trillion worth of oil above and in the ground in Iraq, that individuals involved in the administration have been involved in the oil industry, that the oil industry certainly would benefit from having the administration control Iraq, and that the fact is that, since no other case has been made to go to war against Iraq, for this nation to go to war against Iraq, represents the strongest incentive. -- Dennis Kucinich |
CON: "If it was a war for oil, we wouldn't have done it. -- Dave O'Reilly |
| 6. Legality of Preemptive Warfare | |
PRO: "Almost since the moment that the [1945 UN Charter] was adopted, states have used force in circumstances that simply cannot be squared with the charter paradigm... -- Anthony Arend |
CON: "We are teachers of international law. On the basis of the information publicly available, there is no justification under international law for the use of military force against Iraq. -- Ulf Bernitz Nicolas Espejo-Yaksic Agnes Hurwitz Vaughan Lowe Ben Saul Katja Ziegler James Crawford Susan Marks Roger O'Keefe Christine Chinkin Gerry Simpson Deborah Cass Matthew Craven Philippe Sands Ralph Wilde Pierre-Marie Dupuy |
| 7. Iraq as a Threat to the United States | |
PRO: "The fact is that Iraq's weapons do pose a grave threat to international peace and security. It was in recognition of their singular menace, that the United Nations security council unanimously passed Security Council Resolution 1441 last November... We also have to differentiate between the threat posed by Iraq and other would-be proliferators. No other country shares Iraq's history of deploying chemical weapons in a war of aggression against a neighbor, or against innocent civilians as part of a genocidal campaign." -- Jack Straw |
CON: "The stated reason for the war was that Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction that posed a long-term threat to America. I never bought this argument. I didn't have any inside information. I simply assumed that whatever WMD Saddam possessed had to be, after a decade of sanctions, so limited that it was easily deterrable. There was absolutely nothing in Saddam's history to suggest that he was suicidal-that he had the capability or will to attack the United States directly and pay the price. -- Thomas Friedman |
| 8. United Nations Involvement in the US-Led Attack | |
PRO: "We've -- the president's done everything he could, gone the extra mile, to try to get this matter resolved through the United Nations. And -- but he's [G.W. Bush] made it abundantly clear that if the UN is not willing to enforce its own resolution, that we may then be left with no choice but for the United States and others who agree with us to proceed to -- to disarm Saddam Hussein. And we are prepared to do that. And, obviously, given where we are, both diplomatically, as well as in the -- in the region, we're getting close to the point where the president's going to have to make an important decision." -- Dick Cheney |
CON: "I think that under today's world order, the Charter is very clear on circumstances under which force can be used. I think the discussion going on in the Council is to ensure that the Security Council, which is master of its own deliberations, is able to pronounce itself on what happens. If the US and others were to go outside the Council and take military action it would not be in conformity with the Charter."
-- Kofi Annan |
| 9. Possibility for Democracy in Iraq | |
PRO: "This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution." -- George W. Bush |
CON: "The US is not the political, economic, and social model for every culture and every political system ... In most cases, economic and physical security; dealing with the educational and job problems created by demographic change, and creating basic human rights will be far more important than trying to rush towards 'democracy' in nations with no history of pluralism, no or weak moderate political parties, and deep religious and ethnic divisions ... The idea that the US can suddenly create examples of the kind of new political, economic, and social systems it wants in ways that will transform regions or cultures has always been little more than intellectual infantilism, and Iraq provides all the proof the US can ever afford to acquire." -- Anthony H. Cordesman |
| 10. Cost of the War | |
PRO: "The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the incremental costs of deploying a force to the Persian Gulf would be between $9 billion and $13 billion and that prosecuting a war would cost between $6 billion and $9 billion a month -- although we cannot estimate how long such a war may last. -- U.S. Congressional Budget Office |
CON: "Wars are costly undertakings. They almost always cost more than government officials claim they will. Yale economist William D. Nordhaus has suggested that governments have an incentive to understate the costs of conflict because 'If wars are thought to be short, cheap, and bloodless, then it is easier to persuade the populace and the Congress to defer to the President'. -- William Hartung |
| PRO Iraq War | CON Iraq War |