Feature Article

Iraq: the moral case for war

Can American policy towards Iraq be reconciled with Christian just war principles? The American political and social analyst Michael Novak believes so. He expounded his view in a public lecture in Rome this week

THE reason why the United States is going to war against Saddam Hussein, unless he fulfils his solemn obligations to international order or leaves power, has nothing to do with any new theory of ?preventive war?. On the contrary, such a war comes under traditional just war doctrine, for this war is a lawful conclusion to the just war fought and swiftly won in February 1991. At that time, the war was summarily interrupted, in order to negotiate the terms of surrender with the unjust aggressor, Saddam Hussein.

At the peace table, the United Nations insisted that, as a condition of his continuation in the presidency of Iraq, Saddam Hussein must both disarm and provide proof to the UN that he had disarmed, accounting with transparency for all his known weapons systems and arsenals. In particular, he was ordered to destroy his stocks of mustard gas, sarin, botulin, anthrax and other chemical and biological agents. He was also to provide proof that he had destroyed all his prior work towards the development of nuclear weapons.

During the next 12 years, despite constant warnings, Saddam Hussein brazenly flouted all these obligations. In late 2002, the Security Council again solemnly placed him under edict to prove that he had carried out these obligations, on which his very right under international law to remain in power depended. Again, he provided no such proof. Indeed, he continues to insult the Security Council by his performance.

Meanwhile, in a sudden and violent fashion, another war was launched against the United States ? and, indeed, against international civilised order ? on 11 September 2001. This unsought and sudden war emerged from a new strategic concept, ?asymmetrical warfare?, and it threw the behaviour of Saddam Hussein into an entirely new light, and increased the danger he poses to the civilised world a hundredfold.

Before elaborating on that, let me recall that authentic Catholic doctrine on the just war, as formulated by St Augustine and St Thomas, lays out a clear path of reasoning for public authorities acting in their official capacities in approaching the decision to go to war, or not. Moreover, in evaluating these contingencies, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church assigns primary responsibility, not to distant commentators, but to such public authorities themselves.

This assignment of responsibility is made for two reasons. First, they are the ones who bear the primary vocational role and constitutional duty to protect the lives and the rights of their people. Secondly, they are by the principle of subsidiarity the authorities closest to the facts of the case and ? given the nature of war by clandestine terror networks today ? privy to highly restricted intelligence. Others have a right and duty to voice their own judgements of conscience. But the final judgement belongs to public authorities.

What is new in the world of just war theory in the twentieth century is this concept of ?asymmetrical warfare?. This concept has been developed by international terrorist groups that, although dependent on clandestine assistance from states willing to help them secretly, are not responsible to any public authority. In order to demonstrate the inability of elected governments to defend the lives of their own people, these terrorist cells execute attacks upon innocent civilians. The more dramatic and murderous these attacks, the more likely they are to shake legitimate governments to their foundations.

This new strategic concept, and the new technological, educational, and logistical conditions that make it practicable, have brought about widespread moral condemnation of such international terrorist groups as the enemies of civilised order. The Vatican itself voiced this condemnation following the massacres of 11 September 2001.

When it became clear that the main training ground and command centre of the perpetrators of the massacres of 11 September were under the protection of the Taliban Government in Afghanistan, moral authorities further agreed that a limited and carefully conducted war to bring about a change of regime in Afghanistan was morally obligatory.

During the next months, intelligence services learned that the terrorists had plans for further attacks upon famous targets in European capitals, including Paris, London, and the Vatican. Months later, attacks upon the Moscow opera house, Christian churches in Pakistan, and a crowded disco in Indonesia indicated the worldwide reach of the threat.

Nonetheless, in the case of Iraq today, Civilt? Cattolica argued recently that war would be unjust, and posited the theory that American motives, in particular, were driven by Iraqi oil. But America has just reasons for war far more important than that.

What is uppermost in American national interests is that, at a time we did not choose and in a way we did not will, war was declared upon us in word and deed on 11 September. That aggressor had no standing army, whose movements in advance gave notice of an imminent attack. On the contrary, the attack came all unexpected, striking its innocent victims on a soft, warm, blue-skied September day. The weapons employed were not conventional military armaments, but rather American civilian aircraft heavy with fuel for the long trip to California. The targets chosen ? tall skyscrapers ? left their unsuspecting victims particularly helpless. Normal criteria watched for by just war theorists were not literally present: neither conventional military movements, nor visible signs of imminent attack, nor the authority of a hostile nation state. The horror of the damage was immense, just the same.

International war had clearly been launched. Its perpetrators called it an international jihad, aimed not only against the United States but the entire West, indeed, against the whole non-Islamic world.

No major moral authority had any difficulty in recognising that a war to prevent this new type of terrorism is not only just but morally obligatory.

How does Iraq fit into that picture? From the point of view of public authorities who must calculate the risks of action or inaction vis-?-vis the regime of Saddam Hussein, two points are salient. First, Saddam Hussein has the means to wreak devastating destruction upon Paris, London, or Chicago, or any cities of his choosing, if only he can find clandestine undetectable ?foot soldiers? to deliver small amounts of the sarin gas, botulins, anthrax and other lethal elements to predetermined targets. Secondly, independent terrorist assault cells have already been highly trained for precisely such tasks, and have trumpeted far and wide their intentions to carry out such destruction willingly, with joy. All that is lacking between these two incendiary elements is a spark of contact.

Given Saddam?s proven record in the use of such weapons, and given his recognised contempt for international law, only an imprudent or even foolhardy statesman could trust that these two forces will stay apart forever. At any time they could combine, in secret, to murder tens of thousands of innocent and unsuspecting citizens.

Please note. Were such an attack to come, it would come without imminent threat, without having been signalled by movements of conventional arms, without advance warning of any kind.

Somewhere between 0 and 10, in other words, there already is a probability of Saddam?s deadly weapons falling into al-Qaida?s willing hands. (There are also other branches of the international terror network.) Reasonable observers can disagree about whether that risk is at 2 or 4 or 8. But this much is clear. Those who judge that the risk is low, and therefore allow Saddam to remain in power, will bear a horrific responsibility if they guessed wrong, and acts of destruction do occur.

It is one thing for other observers to calculate these risks; it is another for duly constituted authorities, responsible for protecting their people from unprovoked attack.

Of course, those who today choose the path of war will bear responsibility for all the bitter fruits of war to come. The moral question here, as in so many areas in which prudence must be invoked, requires the responsible weighing of risks. To settle this moral question also requires knowledge of information from intelligence services, which monitor terrorist networks and their activities.

In brief, some persons argue today (as I do) that, under the original Catholic just war doctrine, a limited and carefully conducted war to bring about a change of regime in Iraq is, as a last resort, morally obligatory. For public authorities to fail to conduct such a war would be to put their trust imprudently in the sanity and goodwill of Saddam Hussein. He is a leader of proven ?megalomania? (a term applied to him by President Mubarak of Egypt), unusually cruel, who has made long and regular use of weapons of mass destruction even against his own citizens. Should he violate the authorities? trust by a violent biological attack in some Western city, they would have inexcusably ignored his record, having made themselves hostage to his moral reliability.

A word should be said here about the original Catholic just war doctrine, and especially those questions that arise in making the decisions that lead up to war. These questions quite naturally come before the questions that query the conduct to be followed in waging war. Just war doctrine has at its root the Catholic understanding of original sin, articulated in this context by St Augustine in Book XIX of The City of God. In this world, Christians will always have to cope with the evil in the human breast that sows division, destruction, and devastation. Augustine had seen many such evils in his lifetime, including the horrors of the sack of Rome in AD 410. Nonetheless, he held that Christians acting as public authorities are bound by laws of charity and justice even in waging war.

Augustine defined peace as the ?tranquillity of order? represented by a dynamic, changing international order, created by just political communities, and mediated through law. When public authorities move to defend this order against unjust aggressors, theirs is a just political end, and may be morally obligatory upon public authorities when circumstances dictate that evil must be stopped.

No one today denies that international terrorism is a deliberate assault on the very possibility of international order. That public authorities have a duty to confront this terrorism, and to defeat it, is universally recognised. The primary duty of public authorities in well-ordered democracies is to protect the lives and rights of their people. Moreover, those public authorities who bear the immediate responsibility and who are closest to the facts of the case, have moral priority of place. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states this with no ambiguity, as we have seen.

The first reason, then, why public authorities in the United States have urged the United Nations to become serious about Iraq is the war pre-emptively declared upon the United States on 11 September. It was obvious from the beginning that 19 graduate students from middle-class families (mostly in Saudi Arabia) did not perform that deed unaided. They had the support of states (Afghanistan in the first place, but also Yemen, Iran, Sudan and others) willing to act clandestinely but not openly, as international outlaws.

Meanwhile, for 12 long years Saddam has flagrantly violated the conditions laid down by the United Nations for the continuation of his presidency. In a world that has become far more dangerous after 11 September 2001, either the world community now upholds international order, or it backs down from its own solemn agreements.

Many other nations besides Iraq have been obliged to disarm, and to show proof of it, for instance, South Africa, Kazakhstan and other nations of the former Soviet Union. All have complied fully and openly. Iraq has not.

It is not the burden of the international community to prove Iraq?s non-compliance. That fact was publicly and internationally well established years ago. It is Saddam Hussein?s obligation, as a condition for continuing in his presidency, to present evidence that he has disarmed. This he has so far disdained to do. He has judged that the international community lacks the will to enforce its decrees.

For some years, it seemed reasonable (if shameful) not to force him to comply, but just to wait him out. However, the maturation of al-Qaida and other highly trained international terrorist groups adds to his violation of UN decrees a new peril. On his record, he is capable of ordering a tremendous loss of life, through a secretive, sudden attack upon major Western cities with small amounts of biological or chemical agents.

With less than a teaspoon of anthrax distributed in letters, for instance, thousands of government workers in Washington were obliged to be screened and preventively treated for anthrax poisoning, one Senate office building was closed for many weeks for decontamination, two post office workers died, and many others fell ill for some time.

Saddam Hussein has failed to account for more than 5,000 litres ? five million teaspoons ? of anthrax which he is known to have possessed just a few years ago. This does not include the thousands of litres of botulin and other forms of biological weapons, including nerve gas and sarin gas, reported by UN inspectors to have been present in his arsenals. Nor does it include the stockpiles of mustard gas the UN reported in his possession.

In recent weeks, newspapers have carried reports from European intelligence agencies of serious efforts by highly trained Chechen and other Islamic jihadists preparing for terrorist attacks in European cities, in case there is war in Iraq. Whether or not there is war in Iraq, these hidden cells are active now, and will be active years from now. Probabilities are high that one or more of these cells will get their hands on biological or chemical agents. Nowhere will it be easier for them than in Iraq.

That those chemical and biological agents lie waiting for them must be taken as a fact, until Saddam Hussein offers proof that he has destroyed them. For 12 years he has refused to do so, even under the pain of economic sanctions. To believe that he will now present such proof goes beyond common sense. Nonetheless, he has again been given a window of opportunity to prove that he has destroyed them, and that they pose no danger.

Let us hope that as a last resort Saddam Hussein decides to obey his solemn obligations under the negotiated peace of 1991, and thus at last meets the minimum requirement of international order. In that case, there will be no war: the policy of the United States will have succeeded without the need for it. Michael Novak is director of social and political studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, where he holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy and Public Policy. The text of his Rome lecture has been slightly shortened.