No WMD? No Problem!
by Lee McCracken
April 28, 2003

Before the war with Iraq, rationales for invading seemed to shift from week to week. I guess it shouldn't come as any surprise that they continue to do so even after the war is over.

The ostensible justification for war in Iraq, as far as I could tell, was that Saddam's regime posed a threat to the U.S. because of his alleged possession and continued development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and ties to Islamist terrorist groups. The evidence for these allegations seemed scanty at times, but one could, with some effort, make a reasonable case that this constituted a threat.

But now the war is over, the U.S. is occupying an increasingly hostile Iraq, and the dreaded WMD have yet to materialize. If the nasty things continue to elude our intrepid forces, does this mean the war was a colossal mistake?

Fear not, because our hawks are already hard at work backpedaling in order to secure the U.S. a place in the annals of righteousness. Taking a cue from Groucho Marx, if you don't like one rationalization for the war, they've got others! The latest installment in this whitewash is a recent column by Jeff Jacoby entitled "Where's the smoking gun?"

Jacoby is honest enough to admit that we may, in fact, never find Saddam's alleged arsenal of terror. But, you see it doesn't even really matter if we do. "Now it is conceivable," he concedes, "if just barely, that when all is said and done, the search for Iraq's WMD – 'weapons of mass destruction' – will turn up nothing…. [b]ut in a larger sense, all of this is beside the point."

Beside the point? Really! The entire justification offered to the American people for a war and full-scale invasion of another nation could fall like a house of cards, and this would be beside the point?

See, the "real" weapons of mass destruction are not biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, but Saddam himself! "Whatever chemical, biological, or nuclear evidence the United States and its allies may find, they have already eliminated the real weapons of mass destruction: Saddam Hussein and his evil government."

Well, that makes me feel much better. Never mind the fact that Saddam, without WMD and living several thousand miles away, wouldn't exactly seem to constitute an immediate threat to America.

But, it turns out that the real justification for this war needn't have anything to do with WMD, or any threat to the United States, because "the best reason for destroying this dictator was that decent nations do not look the other way when human beings by the hundreds of thousands are being butchered and terrorized. Genocide and mass murder demand a response, and better a belated response than none at all."

Now, only the most stonehearted cynic or ideological fanatic could fail to be moved by the sight of Iraqis flooding the streets of Baghdad, celebrating, and tearing down the symbols of the hated Baathist regime (even if they needed a little help from U.S. soldiers). The jubilation on the faces of those finally freed from Saddam's tyranny was truly thrilling to watch. And no one can deny that this regime richly deserved to be sent to the ash heap of history and that virtually anything that replaces it will be an improvement. Plus, the civilian death toll, while not inconsequential, has fallen far short of the "hundreds of thousands" predicted by some.

But the fact remains that war with Iraq was sold to the American people, not primarily as a war of liberation for Iraqis, but as a war for American security. According to war proponents, this was not a threat that could be deterred or contained, but one that required preemptive military action. This represented a fairly radical break with traditional notions of just war, which allow military action only in response to aggression or imminent attack.

If it turns out that this threat was virtually nonexistent (as many suspected), then what are we supposed to conclude? Post facto rationalizations for the war won't change the fact that it was entered into under false pretenses. Either the administration was lying or it was simply mistaken. Neither possibility exactly fills me with confidence. Arguably, the most fundamental duty of any government is to protect its citizens from foreign attack. How can it perform this task if it either can't or won't distinguish between genuine and spurious threats?

If the U.S. is going to become the self-appointed policeman of the world and overthrower of evil dictators, it would be nice if our government didn't try and clothe this in the language of self-defense. Of course, the administration hawks might worry that an idealistic global crusade to stamp out tyranny and evil couldn't be sold, in all its candor, to the American public. And I suspect they'd be right. Going "abroad in search of monsters to destroy" is nothing but a recipe for perpetual war.

Lee McCracken lives in the San Francisco Bay area. He has also written for anti-state.com and Strike-the-Root.com.