The Right War for the Right Reasons

American and British armed forces will likely soon begin to disarm Iraq by destroying the regime of Saddam Hussein. We do not know whether they will have the explicit authorization of veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council. But either way, the men and women ordered to undertake this mission can take pride in the justice of their cause.

Critics argue that the military destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime would be, in a word, unjust. This opposition has coalesced around a set of principles of "just war" — principles that they feel would be violated if the United States used force against Iraq.

The main contention is that we have not exhausted all nonviolent means to encourage Iraq's disarmament. They have a point, if to not exhaust means that America will not tolerate the failure of nonviolent means indefinitely. After 12 years of economic sanctions, two different arms-inspection forces, several Security Council resolutions and, now, with more than 200,000 American and British troops at his doorstep, Saddam Hussein still refuses to give up his weapons of mass destruction. Only an obdurate refusal to face unpleasant facts — in this case, that a tyrant who survives only by the constant use of violence is not going to be coerced into good behavior by nonviolent means — could allow one to believe that we have rushed to war.

These critics also object because our weapons do not discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Did the much less discriminating bombs dropped on Berlin and Tokyo in World War II make that conflict unjust? Despite advances in our weaponry intended to minimize the loss of innocent life, some civilian casualties are inevitable. But far fewer will perish than in past wars. Far fewer will perish than are killed every year by an Iraqi regime that keeps power through the constant use of lethal violence. Far fewer will perish than might otherwise because American combatants will accept greater risk to their own lives to prevent civilian deaths.

The critics also have it wrong when they say that the strategy by the United States for the opening hours of the conflict — likely to involve more than 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours — is intended to damage and demoralize the Iraqi people. It is intended to damage and demoralize the Iraqi military and to dissuade Iraqi leaders from using weapons of mass destruction against our forces or against neighboring countries, and from committing further atrocities against the Iraqi people.

The force our military uses will be less than proportional to the threat of injury we can expect to face should Saddam Hussein continue to build an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons.

Many also mistake where our government's primary allegiance lies, and should lie. The American people, not the United Nations, is the only body that President Bush has sworn to represent. Clearly, the administration cares more about the credibility of the Security Council than do other council members who demand the complete disarmament of the Iraqi regime yet shrink from the measures needed to enforce that demand. But their lack of resolve does not free an American president from his responsibility to protect the security of this country. Both houses of Congress, by substantial margins, granted the president authority to use force to disarm Saddam Hussein. That is all the authority he requires.

Many critics suggest that disarming Iraq through regime change would not result in an improved peace. There are risks in this endeavor, to be sure. But no one can plausibly argue that ridding the world of Saddam Hussein will not significantly improve the stability of the region and the security of American interests and values. Saddam Hussein is a risk-taking aggressor who has attacked four countries, used chemical weapons against his own people, professed a desire to harm the United States and its allies and, even faced with the prospect of his regime's imminent destruction, has still refused to abide by the Security Council demands that he disarm.

Isn't it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness? Wouldn't people subjected to brutal governments be encouraged to see the human rights of Muslims valiantly secured by Americans — rights that are assigned rather cheap value by the critics' definition of justice?

Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq — a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for the two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice. Some of them will perish in this just cause. May God bless them and may humanity honor their sacrifice.

"Most people do not realize how many conservatives are against going to war in Iraq.

A strong majority of nationally syndicated conservative columnists have come out against this war. Just three of many examples I could give include the following:

Charley Reese, a staunch conservative, who was selected a couple of years ago as the favorite columnist of C-Span viewers, wrote that a U.S. attack on Iraq: "is a prescription for the decline and fall of the American empire. Overextension – urged on by a bunch of rabid intellectuals who wouldn't know one end of a gun from another – has doomed many an empire. Just let the United States try to occupy the Middle East, which will be the practical result of a war against Iraq, and Americans will be bled dry by the costs in both blood and treasure."

Paul Craig Roberts, who was one of the highest-ranking Treasury Department officials under President Reagan and now a nationally-syndicated conservative columnist, wrote: "an invasion of Iraq is likely the most thoughtless action in modern history."

James Webb, a hero in Vietnam and President Reagan's Secretary of the Navy, wrote: "The issue before us is not whether the United States should end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a nation are prepared to occupy territory in the Middle East for the next 30 to 50 years."

It is a traditional conservative position to be against huge deficit spending.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a very short war followed by a five-year occupation of Iraq would cost the U.S. $272 billion, this on top of an estimated $350 billion deficit for the coming fiscal year.

It is a traditional conservative position to be against the U.S. being the policeman of the world. That is exactly what we will be doing if we go to war in Iraq.

It is a traditional conservative position to be against world government, because conservatives believe that government is less wasteful and arrogant when it is small and closer to the people.

It is a traditional conservative position to be critical of, skeptical about, even opposed to the very wasteful, corrupt United Nations, yet the primary justification for this war, what we hear over and over again, is that Iraq has violated 16 U.N. resolutions.

Well, other nations have violated U.N. resolutions, yet we have not threatened war against them.

It is a traditional conservative position to believe it is unfair to U.S. taxpayers and our military to put almost the entire burden of enforcing U.N. resolutions on the U.S., yet that is exactly what will happen in a war against Iraq.

In fact, it is already happening, because even if Hussein backs down now it will cost us billions of dollars in war preparations and moving so many of our troops, planes, ships, and equipment to the Middle East.

It is a traditional conservative position to be against huge foreign aid, which has been almost a complete failure for many years now.

Talk about huge foreign aid – Turkey is demanding $26 to $32 billion according to most reports. Israel wants $12 to $15 billion additional aid. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia want additional aid in unspecified amounts.

Almost every country that is supporting the U.S. in this war effort wants something in return. The cost of all these requests have not been added in to most of the war cost calculations.

All this to fight a bad man who has a total military budget of about $1.4 billion, less than 3/10 of one percent of ours.

The White House said Hussein has less than 40% of the weaponry and manpower that he had at the time of the first Gulf War. One analyst estimated only about 20%.

His troops surrendered then to camera crews or even in one case to an empty tank. Hussein has been weakened further by years of bombing and economic sanctions and embargos.

He is an evil man, but he is no threat to us, and if this war comes about, it will probably be one of the shortest and certainly one of the most lopsided wars in history.

Our own CIA put out a report just a few days before our War Resolution vote saying that Hussein was so weak economically and militarily he was really not capable of attacking anyone unless forced into it. He really controls very little outside the city of Baghdad.

The Washington Post, two days ago, had a column by Al Kamen which said: "The war in Iraq, likely in the next few weeks, is not expected to last long, given the overwhelming U.S. firepower to be arrayed against the Iraqis. But the trickier job may be in the aftermath, when Washington plans to install an administrator, or viceroy, who would direct postwar reconstruction of the place."

Fortune magazine said: "Iraq – We win. What then?" "A military victory could turn into a strategic defeat. . . . A prolonged, expensive, American-led occupation . . . could turn U.S. troops into sitting ducks for Islamic terrorists. . . . All of that could have immediate and negative consequences for the global economy."

Not only have most conservative columnists come out strongly against this war, but also at least four conservative magazines and two conservative think tanks.

One conservative Republican member of the other Body (Sen. Hagel) said last week that the "rush to war in Iraq could backfire" and asked: "We are wrecking coalitions, relationships and alliances so we can get a two-week start on going to war alone?"

The Atlantic Monthly magazine said we would spend so much money in Iraq we might as well make it the 51st state. I believe most conservatives would rather that money be spent here instead of 7,000 miles away.

It is a traditional conservative position to be in favor of a strong national defense, not one that turns our soldiers into international social workers, and to believe in a noninterventionist foreign policy rather than in globalism or internationalism.

We should be friends with all nations, but we will weaken our own nation, maybe irreversibly unless we follow the more humble foreign policy the President advocated in his campaign.

Finally, it is very much against every conservative tradition to support preemptive war.

Another member of the other Body, the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, not a conservative but certainly one with great knowledge of and respect for history and tradition said recently:

"This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world. This nation is about to embark upon the first test of the revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption – the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future – is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self-defense."

The columnist William Raspberry, again not a conservative but one who sometimes takes conservative positions, wrote this week these words: "Why so fast. Because Hussein will stall the same way he's been stalling for a dozen years. A dozen years, by the way, during which he has attacked no one, gassed no one, launched terror attacks on no one. Tell me its because of American pressure that he has stayed his hand, and I say great. Isn't that better than a U.S.-launched war guaranteed to engender massive slaughter and spread terrorism?"

Throughout these remarks, I have said not one word critical of the President or any of his advisors or anyone on the other side of this issue.

I especially have not and will not criticize the fine men and women in our Nation's armed forces. They are simply following orders and attempting to serve this country in an honorable way.

Conservatives are generally not the types who participate in street demonstrations, especially ones led by people who say mean-spirited things about our President. But I do sincerely believe the true conservative position, the traditional conservative position is against this war.

March 6, 2003 Congressman John J. Duncan represents the 2nd District of Tennessee.

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