October 7, 2002
President Bush's Case for Attack on Iraq Is Weak
by Ivan Eland
Ivan Eland is director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute.
President Bush's speech attempting to make the case for invading Iraq contained little new information. Thus, the speech failed to bolster his administration's weak case for a very risky change from the existing and effective U.S. policy of deterring and containing Saddam Hussein. The president attempted to argue that if the United States does not act, the threat from Iraq will worsen when Saddam Hussein gets nuclear weapons. Yet the historical record of the Gulf War indicates that Hussein was deterred from using weapons of mass destruction against the world's only remaining superpower by its huge nuclear arsenal.
The president also failed to provide specific evidence to show that the Iraqi government had any role in the terrorist attacks of September 11. He also failed to argue persuasively that Saddam would have any incentive to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. For a decade or more, Hussein has not given such weapons to terrorist groups he supports that operate against his hated enemies in the Middle East.
In contrast, if Hussein knows his days are numbered, he has every incentive to use weapons of mass destruction or give them to terrorist groups hostile to the United States-the very outcome that the president is trying to avoid.
At least for now, the president seemed to leave himself an alternative to an invasion of Iraq. He declared that military action was not imminent or unavoidable. He then said that if Saddam Hussein took various actions to satisfy U.N. resolutions, such steps would change the Iraqi regime. The president would be wise to continue using this definition of "regime change" and avoid a costly and unnecessary invasion of Iraq.