Editorial: Before starting war, U.S. needs more evidence

The last time the United States bombed a suspected weapons
development facility, they destroyed a pharmacy in Sudan.

In Afghanistan, the United States accidentally bombed what they
thought to be an al-Qaeda affiliate ““ it was a wedding.

Similar mistakes are likely to be made if the United States or
United Nations use Iraqi refusal of a U.N. resolution mandating the
readmittance of weapons inspectors as a basis to go to war. This
would certainly increase international suspicion and mistrust of
Iraq’s claims of nuclear innocence, but suspicions alone
don’t justify war.

That said, Iraq should by all means accept the U.N. resolution
and readmit the weapons inspectors they agreed to after
surrendering in the Gulf War. Weapons inspectors are not only the
easiest way for the United Nations to ensure Saddam Hussein remains
a minor threat ““ they are also the easiest way for Hussein to
continue his tenure as the head of Iraq. By refusing them, he would
only antagonize a world already apprehensive about his rule.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi parliament appears ready to reject the
resolution, having already expressed fury at its demands. If this
happens, the United States should not immediately launch a war
against Iraq. Instead, it should continue collecting evidence it
can use to make a convincing argument before the United Nations and
its own public. The United States has an entire bureaucracy at hand
to covertly gather the same information weapons inspectors would
provide ““ the Central Intelligence Agency. So use it.

During the Cold War, weapons inspectors certainly weren’t
the only source for U.S. information on Soviet weapons programs.
There is no apparent reason they need to be in Iraq. The CIA is
already collecting information, but the Bush Administration has not
openly shared convincing data with Congress or the public because
either it’s weak or they don’t have it. Once they do, a
course of action will become much clearer ““ a vast
improvement over the unfounded accusations and hypothetical
situations currently being used as justifications for war.

Earlier this year, Vice President Dick Cheney said sharing
“evidence” already accumulated might expose
intelligence sources in Iraq ““ but this doesn’t really
matter if a regime change is going to take place anyway. And if
such a great threat to national security is imminent, it should
take precedence to everything else.

The U.N. resolution threatened “serious
consequences” for Iraq if it does not comply with the
resolution. But this doesn’t necessarily need to take the
form of war. War hawks would say not following through with a war
resolution would damage the U.N.’s credibility and only
encourage Hussein to continue to ignore its mandates.

But the damage done to the U.N.’s credibility by refusing
to adopt a war resolution would be much less than that done if it
blindly gives into the wishes of the United States. France, Russia
and China, three of the permanent U.N. Security Council members,
all originally opposed war with Iraq but now appear to be caving
into the United States’ incessant demands.

If the United States receives U.N. support for its war on Iraq
without first presenting sufficient evidence, it will have hijacked
the veto rights of the three aforementioned nations and the
decision-making powers of the U.N. as a whole. War with Iraq would
still be as unilateral as it was before ““ opposing states
simply would have given into the wishes of the more powerful United
States, with which many of them have economic ties.

Even if Iraq is a nuclear explosion waiting to happen, current
projections show it will not detonate for the next decade or so.
Unless Bush can prove there is a much more imminent threat to the
American people, the next five years should be devoted to defusing
this threat diplomatically.