Should We Go to War?--The Experts
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Last updated 12/19/2005

1.  What were the views of an invasion from former U.S. administration foreign policy experts?

2.  What was the expert view outside of Washington?  (also see "Allies" section)

1.  What were the views of an invasion from former U.S. administration foreign policy experts?

A recent Clinton era official to weigh in before the war was Bill Bradley, the former NJ Senator and Presidential candidate against Gore in 2000.  

Claiming that Bush "has not made the case" for war, Bradley writes in his Post Op-ed (Feb. 2) that the President's State of the Union address "did not demonstrate that a unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq will help in the fight against the ongoing, more serious, distributed threat of worldwide terrorism.  To the contrary, it could well become a giant recruiting vehicle for al Qaeda and its imitators."

An invasion might, Bradley continued, "destabilize Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Egypt--any one of which would be a major strategic loss for the US...The President minimized the importance of allies...The administration ignores this opposition at America's peril.  Those who preach American hegemony might well be trapped in the swamp of American hubris."  Bradley concludes his Op-ed thusly:  "Consensus sometimes takes longer.  It often doesn't fit a political calendar, but it is far preferable to unilateral action that jeopardizes our long-term leadership abroad and our unity at home." 

Fellow Senator and Presidential candidate (1984 and 1988) Gary Hart (D-CO) titled his Post op-ed of March 9, "A Detour From the War on Terrorism:"  "It is difficult to imagine that the president seriously believes an invasion of Iraq will reduce the terrorist threat to the U.S."

On disclosure of the cost and on trust, Hart writes, "What is worse, our president does not trust his own people.  He does not trust us enough to tell us which other nation will provide combat forces and in what numbers, how long our military will remain in the volatile Middle East or how much the long-term military enterprise will cost in deficit tax dollars.  Most disturbing, our president does not trust us enough to tell us the casualty estimates for our sons and daughters and for Iraqi civilians.  The Pentagon has produced low, medium and high risk estimates.  The president simply chooses not to disclose them for the justifiable fear that public support for war with Iraq will erode."  Hart's ideas on history include, "Given the pattern of public deception in Vietnam, we should have learned to demand candor and respect for our judgment from our elected officials.  Instead, we are now tacitly permitted to believe war in Iraq will resemble Gulf War I and Afghanistan--quick, relatively bloodless and successful.  We must pray that it will be.  but prayers are no substitute for a leader who trust us enough to be honest about the risk of war." 

Gary Hart, now 66,  came "Out of the Shadow of Doom" to further warn about Iraq.  "Mogadishu is a village compared to Baghdad.  So transpose 'Black Hawk Down' to the streets of a city the size of Paris."  Hart has been warning about domestic terrorism for years as co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century.  His co-chair was former Republican Senator Warren Rudman (NH).

In addition to Bradley and Hart, a third former Democratic Presidential candidate against the war was Jesse Jackson.  Jackson, concerned with eroding U.S. credibility and goodwill, wonder in The Chicago Sun-Times, (http://www.commondreams.org//views03/0304-04.htm) whether "anyone can make sense of what the Bush administration is doing.  It increasingly seems as if the foolish pride  of a cornered dictator and the obsession of an imprudent president are driving us into a costly war that will make America less secure.  Has reason given way to mad passion even before the fog of war descents?"  He feels that weapons inspectors have been given "unscrambled access, even to Saddam's palaces."  Iraq has no missiles that can reach the U.S. is is finally dismantling those that exceed 90 miles.

  Looking at Afghanistan, Jackson wonders how much more that $18 billion/year it will cost to occupy Iraq.  Always eloquent if not controversial, Jackson explain why Hussein is not a threat.  "Saddam, with self-destructive hubris, is less than cooperative.  But the U.S. and Britain occupy 2/3 of Iraq by air, bombing targets at will.  The embargo on Iraq continues.  All agree that the Iraqi miliaty is far less potent than it was a decade ago." 

Robert Malley suggests the need for a plan in "We Don't Invade Iraq.  Then What?" (1/3/03): "Failure to offer practical ideas for what should happen if war does not occur will only make war more likely--either now or when the next crisis is upon us." 

Also in early January comes a warning from Warren Christopher, former Secretary of State (1/1/03, Times).  Christopher wrote that unless President Bush had classified evidence of a greater Iraqi military capability than was known to the public, "The threats from North Korea and from international terrorism are more imminent than those posed by Iraq."  On the side supporting the President in December, came Samuel Berger in "Demonstrate Iraq's Deception" (Post, 12/11/02).

Among former officials, op-ed reaction has been mixed and has changed since the President's UN speech and again since the Iraqi acceptance of Weapons Inspectors.  The trusted National Security Adviser for the President's father, Brent Scowcroft, seemed to begin the public debate on August 15. Scowcroft's damning critique  in The Wall Street Journal and on "Face The Nation", was that a U.S. invasion "could turn the whole region into a cauldron...and could destroy the global counter terrorism campaign." (Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, 8/5/02, and "Warns of Armageddon").  He continued, "Hussein is unlikely to use his weapons."  Scowcroft co-authored a book with former President Bush in which Bush's 1991 cabinet, including Cheney and Powell, agreed not to expand the Persian Gulf War. At the time Scowcroft felt "the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

Criticism of Scowcroft included George Will.  In contrast, Matthew Rothschild's "Arrogance at the Podium"  quoted Scowcroft in arguing that Deterrence will still work:  "[Hussein] is unlikely to risk his investments in weapons of mass destruction much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purpose and leave Baghdad as the return address."  The Nation's Richard Falk reacts to Scowcroft in "A Dangerous Game." Clearly, both sides in the debate see what they wish from Scowcroft's Wall Street Journal writing. A second Scowcroft Op-ed appeared in the Washington Post in late November, where he declared of Hussein, "Since his most basic objective is certainly to stay in power, he is likely to try to buy time through minimal compliance [with UN resolutions and inspectors], hoping the the international resolve to resort to force will wane."  Scowcroft suggested that the President try harder to bring Israel and Palestinians together.  NSA Adviser to Al Gore, Leon Fuerth, worried that the best-case scenario of war and aftermath may yet lead to "deconstruction of alliances."  His March Post op-ed "An Air of Empire" (3/20, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57329-2003Mar19?language=printer) showed concern that the U.S. has made clear it "answers to no authority other than itself" concerning military force.  The Bush doctrine of preemption "becomes a replacement for international law:  Any president at any time in the future can decide to attack any county, provided only that he is satisfied that said county might at some point represent a direct threat to the U.S."  Fuerth concludes with a warning about postwar and allies:  "The administration knows that it is responsible for the reconstruction of Iraq after this war is over.  But it does not appear to realize that it also must find a way to reconstruct another collateral casualty:  the notion that America is part of a community of nations."

Former Bush 41's confidant and Sec. of State during the Gulf War, was James Baker.  Baker urges caution, seeking a new UN resolution and greater coalition support:  "Seeking new authorization now is necessary, politically and practically, and will help build international support." Comments on Baker's views include "One Enemy, Two Camps" and "Jim tries to fix it.":  "Short of George Bush's father taking up his pen himself, no US Republican could have issued a more authoritative or a more public warning."  For more on Baker, see P.S FAQs.

Charles Krauthammer's (Washington Post, 9/13/02) post-Bush UN speech op-ed, "Fictional Rift" includes look at the arguments of Scowcroft, Kissenger, Baker and others.  "So much for the great Republican split over Iraq...[Scowcroft' s] original objection was to naked unilateralism...It turns out that the disagreement among Republicans was less about going to Iraq than about going to the United Nations...the best way to get allies is to let others know you are prepared to got it alone and let them ponder the cost of missing the train."

President Carter's NSC chief Zbigniew Brzezinki discusses the right and wrong ways to begin and wage war with Iraq. In February, Brzezinski updated his views:  "If, one the other hand, we rush to war on our own for the sake of removing Saddam from power and not for the sake of disarmament, we will find ourselves much more isolated.  The aftermath of the war will be exclusively our burden" (Chicago Tribune, 2/14/03). His Post op-ed that week looked at the reasons why there is "such worldwide public opposition" to war.  The root or earliest cause, Brzezinski argues, goes back to the summer of 2002 with calls for regime change and the sense that the U.S. was eager to go to war.  This "generated suspicion that the subsequent U.S. decision to seek UN approval...was essentially a charade, premised on the expectation that Saddam Hussein would prove unambiguously recalcitrant.  U.S. credibility has been been helped by the penchant for citing suspicions as proof of Iraqi transgressions."  In March, Brzezinski criticized Henry Kissenger's view of how the U.S. treats the world, telling nation to "line up" as if they were part of some "Warsaw Pact" (NYTimes, 3/4). 

A former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the assistant secretary of defense, Charles W. Freeman, Jr's Times op-ed is "Even a Superpower Needs Help."  (2/26).  The Saudi's don't see Hussein as an imminent threat, partly because his armed forces are "just one third the size they were in the last war."  Freeman successfully predicts that many Saudis feel that their gain from a second American war with Iraq "would not be the elimination if Iraq's WMD, but the long-delayed departure of American troops from Saudi soil."  Freeman describes the coalition of the willing as "a Coalition of the Sullenly Acquiescent."

Lawrence Eagleburger, also former Republican Sec. of State, says, "I don't think the evidence is there."  

Former Director of the CIA James Woolsey ('93-'95) said in July 2002 to the Post, "If defectors are all you've got, that's a problem."

Testifying before Congress on September 23, three former generals expressed the view that war should only be a last resort, that lacking a UN resolution would cost us allies, and that Al Qaeda recruiting could be energized:  "At the end of the day, the war on terrorism will be won only when we convince one billion Muslims that we are, in fact, a just society; that we do support peace, justice, equality for all people; that in fact we really are the city of a hill" (General Hoar). Anthony Zinni, ex-commander of U.S. military in the Middle East and adviser to Powell, opposes an invasion. Anthony Zinni feels that those who have not been to war "are hot to go to war."   Zinni was against war in October but favored continued containment. (Chicago Tribune, 10/11/02). 

For more on Zinni's post-war views, see his "shaky territory" comparison between Vietnam and Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22922-2003Dec22?language=printer 

Former Marine General and senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, Bernard Trainor hopes that Bush gives Iraq's military three options:  "revolt, surrender, or death" (Boston Globe, 1/3/03).  

General Wesley Clark, former NATO Commander in Kosovo, urged caution.  Clark wrote Commentary in the September 15 Chicago Tribune:  "Thus far the public dialogue has moved backward--commencing with the Bush administration's conclusion that 'regime change' is the only suitable outcome and then presenting supporting facts and assumptions."  Then, in late-January, the Washington Post's David Ignatius adds details. General Clark sites three tests to be met before war;  "First are you sure you won't destroy the international institutions you say you are supporting, and thereby undermine the war against terror.  Second, can you win the war quickly and smoothly, avoiding the collateral damage that would make you lose while winning.  And third, in the aftermath, can you prevent the growth of al Qaeda and control the WMD that may be hidden?" ("A General's Doubts", 1/31/03). For more on Clark see "Books" section; his book was released in October 2003. Also see P.S. FAQ for Clark the Presidential candidate.

Controversial international human rights activist and former U.S. Attorney General of the 1960s, Ramsey Clark visited Iraq and pleaded for no war. Back in 1974 he had run a maverick campaign for U.S. Senate, urging a 50% cut in defense spending.

In 2002 Clark was saying that an attack would be "a massive crime against all international law and against all morality and the United States is better than that." Clark, "The Crusader", feels that an attack "would be the most notorious, arrogant, and contemptuous violation of the UN charter...The UN must act to prevent an attack by the U.S. against Iraq...[which] would cause more and greater violence."  

In response to criticism for meeting with Saddam Hussein before the war, Clark wrote, "Should a free person be afraid to meet with a demonized 'brutal dictator'?...Why did the White House object to interviews...by Dan Rather...and complain that a person who lies should not be allowed to speak in the media" without administration rebuke and rebuttal at different points of the interview?  In the Toronto Star op-ed Clark reminds readers that U.S. regime change in the past brought to power the Shah of Iran ('53), Mobutu in the Congo, Pinochet in Chile ('73), and "dozens of other repressive government subservient to U.S. interest and power."

See more on Clark in Post-Saddam FAQ in Saddam's Trial. 

Former President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize, in the fall of 2002 "for his untiring effort to resolve international conflicts peacefully and to advance democracy and human rights." Carter has argued that the Iraqi threat is overrated.  Back in September Carter's Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post urged that "a unilateral war with Iraq is not the answer."  In mid-November President Carter was welcomed at the White House and in December he urged the administration to continue to work for peace through the UN. In late January he spoke out against a pre-emptive war, feeling that "the case has not been made." Powell's speech would not "indicate any real or proximate threat by Iraq to the US or to our allies.  Carter further argued that an attack by Hussein would be much more likely if Hussein was attacked. Carter argued that war may sometimes be a necessary evil, "but it is always evil."

The former President's March 9 New York Times op-ed "Just War or a Just War" argued of the clearly define criteria for a just war.  "The war can be waged only as a last resort, with all nonviolent options exhausted...The war's weapons must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants...Its violence must be proportional to the injury we have suffer [no link to 9/11], the attacks must have legitimate authority sanctioned by the society they profess to represent and the peace it establishes must be a clear improvement over what exists [aftermath]."  Carter concludes on allies, "the heartfelt sympathy of friendship offered to America after the 9/11 attacks, even from formerly antagonistic regimes, has been largely dissipated; increasingly unilateral and domineering politics have brought international trust in our country to its lowest level in memory.  American stature will surely decline further if we launch a war in clear defiance of the UN. John Anderson, who ran against Jimmy Carter in 1980 as an Independent, now leads the World Federalist Association.  Anderson looked at UN credibility issues.  "Bush made it abundantly clear that he feels the UN is just a nuisance.  It's a very specious and hypocritical attitude to sigh and wonder whether the UN is going the way of the League of Nations when Bush himself has done' everything in his power to see that this happens"  Following World War I, the U.S. Senate never ratified the League of Nations Treaty ("Bush Trashes the UN, The Progressive, Matthew Rothschild, April 2003).  Former President Bill Clinton was quiet through the buildup to war, but one week before war Clinton urged the President to accept a more relaxed timeline in exchange for support from a majority of UNSC members.  Clinton had urged regime change in 1998 (Wash Post, 3/13, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17886-2003Mar12?language=printer).

Scott Ritter, outspoken former chief UN. weapons inspector, and marine corps intelligence officer,  explains his transition from Republican hawk to dove. "I'm not a pacifist.  I'm waging peace with the same tenacity one would wage war" (NYTimes, 9/17/02).

In July 2002 Ritter admits he has "no idea" what is going on in Iraq since '98, and says that if someone can demonstrate that Iraq has WMD "and continues to develop them, then...I would be the first to sign up for the war.  But no one has made that case yet" (WashPost, 7/31/02). 

Just before the Congressional vote, Ritter wrote, "Help us stop the war": 
"The opportunity finally exists to bring clarity to years of speculation about the potential threat posed by Iraq's [WMD]...But President Bush refuses to take 'yes' for an answer. The Bush administration's actions lay bare the mythology that this war is being fought over any threat posed by Iraqi [WMD].  It has made it clear that its objective is the elimination of Saddam Hussein...If President Bush truly wanted to seek regime removal in Baghdad, then he would push for an indictment of Saddam Hussein and his senior leadership in the international court for crimes against humanity, something that should not prove hard to do, given the record of the butcher of Baghdad."  Ritter concluded, "This new Bush doctrine of American unilateralism reeks of imperial power, the very power against which /American fought a revolution more than 200 years ago."

In late November (11/22) the New York Times printed an 8 page article entitled, "Scott Ritter's Iraq Complex" and discussed his book, "Endgame:  Solving the Iraq Problem Once and for All."  Ritter was described by author Barry Beach as "American's most unlikely peacenik."  Ritter's speeches include a accusation that Bush "is force-feeding America 'a whole bunch of oversimplified horse manure.'  War is not a video game where a reset button resurrects the corps.  'War is about dead people.'"  Ritter suspects that the forth-coming inspectors will "'be but a show trial before the hanging.'"  UNSCOM destroyed a lot of weapons, but the original baseline of weapons was somewhat unclear and we were less sure if Iraq is still producing after the Gulf War, conceded Ritter.

"The truth is," said Ritter earlier, Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors and it is not acting in a manner which threatens anyone outside its borders.  Military action against Iraq cannot be justified" (Washington Post, 9/9/02). "You kill on facts, not a hunch" (Chicago Tribune, 9/23/02). Ritter added, "The U.S. is committing diplomatic suicide right now. You're seeing the Bush administration apply this power to coerce.  To bribe, to threaten nations...We may succeed in getting rid of Saddam Hussein, but will lose the war...on terror, the war on how the world views us" (NYTimes, 9/17/02). 

Another former inspector, David Kay, (who played a leading role in WMD searches in post-war Iraq) was very suspicious of Iraq's nuclear program. Kay said in July "Hussein is doing everything he can do without special [nuclear] material, and [he is] betting on acquiring the material outside Iraq" (WashPost, 7/31/02).  For much more on Kay and Post-War U.S. weapons inspections, see P.S. FAQs

Jonathan Tucker is a third former inspector (UN biological weapons, 1995) who weighted in with his Washington Post op-ed in "Can We Find the Weapons?"  He feels that the biological caches, though not yet found, "likely" exist.  What is the plan to keep Iraqi scientists from spreading their knowledge after the war?  An invasion "will run a high risk of promoting the proliferation of WMD."  Tucker recommends that Iraqi borders be sealed and UN inspectors be sent back after the war.  Only if these and other measures are taken would a war reduce the threat of WMD "rather than exacerbate it."  Tucker is a Senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23227-2003Mar13?language=printer

Also see "WMD/Weapons Inspectors" FAQ section and "Saddam Hussein" FAQ #3 for related Ken Pollack analysis.

Additionally, President Clinton's UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke comments on "the summer of disarray:  "They're singing, at least...different lyrics to the same music and they're undermining their case." Even Gulf War Commander ("Stormin'") Norman Schwarzkopf does not want massive American troops returning to Iraq and according to the Washington Post, is worried about:  "the cockiness" of the U.S. war plan; the potential human and financial cost of occupying Iraq; and the unconvincing the evidence.

Schwarzkopf is bothered by Rumsfeld's "dismissive posture" which gives the "perception when he's on TV that he is the guy driving the train and everybody else better fall in line behind him--or else"  .  His postwar concerns:  "I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an army of occupation, because you're going to walk into chaos" ("Desert Caution", 1/28/03).

Madeleine Albright, Clinton's Sec. of State, believes that Hussein "is not a direct threat to the U.S."  In her September 13 New York Times Op-ed, she was both critical and supportive of the President.  Albright warned the President not to be pushed into war too quickly.  "Right now, our primary interest remains the thorough destruction and disruption of Al-Qaeda and related terrorist networks...If Baghdad persists in its defiance, the President has rightly placed the burden on those who oppose the use of force to explain how else compliance may be assured."  She also urged using coercive inspection if Iraq rebuffed inspectors.

After the UN resolution passed in November, she commented on the transformation of Bush's tactics: "We have been seeing a different George Bush after the UN speech and I sense that he has gotten some reality check that has taught him that even if you want to go it alone, you can't" (NYTimes, 11/22/02).  Former UN Humanitarian leader Dennis Halliday (also see "Sanctions" FAQs), proclaimed in mid-December, "The U.S. doesn't want a peaceful solution.  They want an excuse to go to war, to conquer Iraq and control its oil...We will see a great deal of unrest and instability" in the Arab world" (WashPost, 12/18/02). Halliday had resigned his UN humanitarian post in protest in the late 1990s. When a career U.S. diplomat resigned in late February 2003, his letter of resignation to Colin Powell spoke of his 20 years of service. "The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests...our current course will bring instability and danger, not security...We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion since the Vietnam War...Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon...since the days of Woodrow Wilson....We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary...Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism?"  John Brady Kiesling's letter concludes, "Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability...but you loyalty to the President goes too far."  Another diplomat resigned on March 11.  John Brown, in the foreign service since 1981, wrote to Powell, "Throughout the globe the U.S. is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force.  The president's disregard for views of other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century" (NYTimes, 2/12). Generally supporting President Bush's invasion policy since the UN resolution former Sec. of States Al Haig and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State. Kissinger was "shocked" that some in NATO weren't supporting the U.S. more, such as their questioning the veracity of Powell's intelligence reports and lobbying African nations to vote against the U.S. in the UN.

Bob Dole fears that "Iraq is like a runaway freight train loaded with explosives barreling toward us.  We can act to derail it or wait for the crash and deal with the resulting damage."  Dole feels that though he need not legally go to Congress, if Congress united behind the President  Hussein would "know we mean business." Other reaction to these Op-Ed pieces comes from The Washington Post's Jim Hoagland. Also see "Current Editorial/Articles" Page.

Kenneth Pollack Iraqi expert from the Clinton administration and proponent of invasion, looks at U.S. options after the Iraqi arms declaration and suggests war sooner rather than later.  He examined various policy options in December and determined that an invasion was the best (LA Times, 12/29/02, http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/indyk/20021219.htm). Pollack's New York Times op-ed one month before the war was entitled, "A Last Chance to Stop Iraq" (2/21).  The claims of containment of a Hussein with nuclear weapons "Fly in the face of 12 years and in truth more like 30 years of history.  Observers have a very poor track record in predicting the progress of the Iraq nuclear weapons program." More Pollack details on Hussein and deterrence at "Saddam Hussein" FAQs, esp. #3 and see "Books" section.

Pollack is classified as a "reluctant hawk" in the New York Times March 14 "Intellectual Left's Doves Take on Role of Hawks".  The article summarizes Pollack's' fall 2002 book The Threatening Storm with this interview response:  "The choice we have before us is we...either go to war now or we will never go to war with Saddam until he chooses to use a nuclear weapon and he chooses the time and place.  The question for me is not war or no war.  It's a question of was now, when the costs may be significant, or war later when they may be unimaginable."  

Richard Perle, of the Reagan administration and later Bush Pentagon adviser, has a  long interest in overthrowing Hussein, along with Cheney and Rumsfeld. These views are explored in "Playing skittles with Saddam."

2.  What was the view outside of Washington?  (also see "Allies" FAQ section)

Back in September, before Bush's appearance at the UN, Nelson Mandela warned that "no country should be allowed to take the law into heir own hands, especially the U.S....The only superpower" (Washington Post/AP,. 9/2/02). Mandela, former President of South Africa, strongly criticized President Bush on Jan. 31, calling him "a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly...Why does the US behave so arrogantly?  Their friend Israel has got weapons of mass destruction...it is a tragedy" (NYTimes and WashPost, 1/31/03). In early February the 84-year-old Mandela said that he was willing to go to Iraq to help avert a war, but only if the UN approved.

Fellow South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel peace prize winner, who supported war in Kosovo, said, "To see a powerful country use its power frequently unilaterally, I mean the u.s. says, 'You do this' to the world--'If you don't do it we will do it'--that's sad, that's sad" (The Observer/UK, 1/5/03).  Tutu also called Blair's support of the U.S. "mind-boggling" (The Guardian, 1/6/03). 

Michael Walzer, author of "Just and Unjust Wars" and profess of of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study, weighted in withy his March 7 New York Times op-ed "What a Little War in Iraq Could Do."  Walzer felt that a postponed war would be fought under "harder conditions against a stronger Iraq.  He felt the "way out" would be to extend the No Fly Zones into the whole country, impose "smart sanctions" and challenge the French to back up their threat by mobilizing their troops. 

University of Chicago and Harvard political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in "Keeping Saddam Hussein in a Box" (NYTimes, 2/2/03), "The US faces a clear choice on Iraq:  containment or preventive war.  President Bush insists that containment has failed and we must prepare for war.  In fact, war is not necessary.  Containment has worked in the past and can work in the future, even when dealing with...Hussein...Thus, Mr. Hussein has gone to war when he was threatened [Iran] and when he thought he had a window of opportunity [Kuwait].  These considerations do not justify Iraq' actions, but they show that Mr. Hussein is hardly a reckless aggressor who cannot be contained.  In fact, Iraq has never gone to war in the face of a clear deterrent threat...He could use chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iranians because they could not retaliate in kind...Nor has he used such weapons since, even though the US has bombed Iraq repeatedly over the past decade."  The professors conclude their Op-ed piece by suggesting that there is a better option than war.  "Today, Iraq is weakened, its pursuit of nuclear weapons has been frustrated, and any regional ambitions it may once have cherished have been thwarted...Saddam Hussein needs to remain in his box--but we don't need a war to keep him there."

Earlier, in Foreign Policy, "An Unnecessary War", a detailed 12-page analysis, Mearsheimer and Walt argue that "deterrence has worked quite well... President Bush repeated claims that the threat from Iraq is growing ominously makes little sense, and should be viewed as a transparent attempt to scare American people into support a war" (Chicago Tribune, 12/12/02; "Going to war based on ambiguities").  "Scrutiny of Hussein's past dealings with the word," they continue in Foreign Policy, shows that "Saddam, though cruel and calculating, is imminently deterable."  Hawks need to look beyond the past behavior that seems to prove that hi is "too reckless, relentless, and aggressive to be allowed to possess WMD, especially nuclear weapons."  That is, the belief that Saddam's past behavior shows he cannot be contained "rests on distorted history and faulty logic."  In 1980, for example, against Iran and in 1990 against Kuwait, Hussein attacked because "Iraq was vulnerable and because he believed his targets were weak and isolated."  Iran had been meddling with the Kurds in the '70s and Iraq ceded part of their Persian Gulf port to Iran.  This argument is counter to Ken Pollack's "unintentionally suicidal" thesis, detailed in "Hussein" FAQ section, #3. 

Mearsheimer's colleague at the University of Chicago is Marvin Zonis. His Chicago Tribune op-ed emphasizes that the President's State of the Union was "steeped in the divine.  Bush is an arch-conservative who believes in God's plan...bush presented recycled and generally discredited information" such as the aluminum tube charge "discredited" by the UN's IAEA. 

Another University of Chicago professor, Roger B. Myerson, wrote of "The danger of going it alone" (Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2/17), "In claiming that America has unlimited power to attack enemies anywhere in the world, we are spreads seeds of fear that may yield a bitter harvest...Our promises to serve global democracy and freedom become less reassuring when our government insists that only it can judge how they apply."  He concluded that in the long run our policy of going it alone "can invite deadly rivalries to haunt our future." 

Bill Moyers, former Press Secretary of President Johnson in the 1960s and host of PBS's NOW program, wrote in October, "To launch as armada against Hussein's own hostages, a people who have not fired a shot at us in anger, seems a crude and poor alternative to shrewd, disciplined diplomacy...unprovoked, the noble sport of war becomes murder."

Fellow liberal Noam Chomsky (BBC's "War Would Be Insane", 1/20/03) feels that "you never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.  And the arguments that have been given for it are not convincing."  While the world would be better off without Hussein, the means for doing so "may cause very severe humanitarian catastrophe and might lead to the only real likelihood" of his using WMD. Writing on the eve of Powell's UN speech, Chomsky argued that "There's never been a time that I can think of when there's been such mass opposition to a war before it was even started...They have to terrify the population to feel there's some enormous threat to their existence...Iran is the next target," Chomsky predicted. 

Chomsky felt the New York Times was reporting that there were two superpower on the planet, the U.S. and world opinion.  He felt that "our hopes should rest in the second superpower" (The Progressive, 4/03). 

Before the war, Chomsky's op-ed argued that "Washington is teaching the world a dangerous lesson:  If you want to defend yourself from us, you had better mimic North Korea and pose a credible threat.  Otherwise we will demolish you" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 3/13). 

Another liberal, Ralph Nader, President candidate in 2000 and longtime consumer advocate, urged Democrats to speak out. In an open letter to minority leader Daschle and Pelosi, of the Senate and House, he wrote on the eve of war:  "President Bush is on the verge of taking the U.S. into a costly preemptive war, against an enemy widely viewed as posing no imminent or direct threat to our nation or allies, despite the nonviolent alterative of relying on continued and expanded UN-backed inspections. He seems bent on a war, fraught with shot and long-term global risks, without support from long-time international allies, in violation of international law, and without a Congressional declaration of war required by our Constitution."

Jessica Matthews, President of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace in "War is Not Yet Necessary", wrote in her Post Op-ed of Jan. 28, "Iraq's failure to come clean is indisputably a material breach of the resolution but the question remains, is it a reason to got to war?...Only if the government's true aim is not, as stated, to disarm Hussein, but rather to remove him...does a turn to war at this moment make sense."  Matthew concluded, "A war at this moment, however, regardless of the outcome, will bear one of history's harshest judgments:  an unnecessary war." Washington Post letters respond to Matthews.

Carnegie colleague, Joseph Circincione, also commented in late-January. "I don't know how much [WMD] Iraq has, but I don't think the U.S. government does either."  He saw "no reason" why inspections "just beginning" could not continue "for another year" (NYTimes, 1/24/03). 

Colleague Robert Kagan (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), in his Washington Post, editorial "War and the Fickle Left", describes the views of liberal philosopher and just-war theorist Michael Walzer.  In 1998 Walzer argued that "some unilateral use of force can be just."  But now Kagan describes the new view of liberals:  "Yesterday's liberal interventionists in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti are today's liberal absentionists.  What changed?  Just the man in the White House.  Intellectual consistency, even for great thinkers, is no match for partisan passions." A letter to the editor in response points out that the circumstances are not the same as in 1998. Kagan's influential book of 2003, Paradise and Power, examines how European and American have grown apart and now see the world differently.  "American are from marsh, Europeans are from Venus," he contends.  

Also at the Carnegie endowment is democracy expert Thomas Carothers who felt an attack would increase anti-Americanism, strengthen Islamic groups and "deter many Arab governments from experimenting with political change" (WashPost, 2/26). 

Another think tank op-ed, from the Heritage Foundation's James Philipps, argues that "Hussein must go" partly because the UN must follow through on its resolutions.

Walter Russell Mead is respected Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Concluding his Washington Post op-ed "Deadlier Than War", he writes:  "Containing Saddam Hussein delvers civilians into the hands of a murderous psychopath, destabilizes the whole Middle East and foments anti-American terrorists--with no end in sight.  This is disaster, not policy.  It is time for a change" (3/11/03, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13019-2003Mar11?language=printer). 
Mead predicts that containing Hussein for 10 more years with sanctions would lead to the deaths of 360,000 in Iraq, mostly children.

At another think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, is Anthony Cordesman, a frequent military analyst on radio and TV in 2003 and before in the Gulf War of 1991. Speaking of alliances, Cordesman says, "You can forge a coalition of the unwilling and pressure countries into following you once, but that only works if the war goes extremely well and the peace justifies the choices you have made" (WashPost, 1/27/03). 

Cordesman feels that while it is wise to be concerned about worst-case scenarios, "most 'worst-cases' will not happen."  He concludes "The Pentagon's Scariest Thoughts" (3/20) with "the bad news is that all of these risks are real.  The good news is that Iraq doesn't have the equipment or military sophistication to pose the kind of serious threat that it might in a few years--or that North Korea is capable of posing now.  War is never a cakewalk and the unexpected is a certainly.  But most 'worst cases' in Iraq are ones our troops are well trained and well equipped to handle." 

A Cordesman colleague at the Center for Strategic and International Studies is James Mann.  "Bush Wanted His Doctrine and the Allies, Too" opens with "We are witnessing a major intellectual failure by the Bush administration"  He reminds Post readers the week before war that Bush's 2000 campaign included criticism of Clinton for failing to work more closely with our allies, who were described by Bush as "partners but satellites."  Mann also recalls Wolfowitz' thinking in the 1990s as Dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Wolfowitz contented in a Wall Street Journal op-ed of 1997 that our allies would not support us in overthrowing of Hussein for fear that we would "wimp out."  This "Strength Hypothesis" was supplemented with a "Follower Hypothesis" which stated that "if America led, it's friends would follow."  This sounded like his boss Rumsfeld five years later in the countdown to war. Wrote Wolfowitz, "A willingness to act unilaterally can be the most effective way of securing effective collective action."  Mann contends that these underlying assumption were not valid:  "The Strength Hypothesis failed because displays of power by the U.S. seemed to worry or even frighten American's friends and allies rather than winning them over.  The Follower Hypothesis didn't work out because other notions were discomfited or downright insulted by being treated as though they were expected to simply get in line."  On allies, he contends that some Europeans seem to believe "erroneously, that American foreign policy is in the grip of a right-wing cabal, a misperception that fails to explain why many Democrats and liberals shave supported (or are not opposing) war with Iraq."  Mann's book on Bush and his foreign policy is due out in 2003 or 2004. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27756-2003Mar14?language=printer

From the American Academy of Arts and Science, historian and author David Greenberg examines spying, forgeries, and Vietnam in "We Don't Even Agree On What's Newsworthy" (3/16). 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27787-2003Mar14?language=printer
 Highlights include: "A rift now separates the U.S. and the world--not just a diplomatic gap, but a perception gap...Repeatedly , unflattering aspects of America's foreign policy have gotten big play overseas while receiving fleeting comment or shrugs at home."  He talks of the U.S. admission of spying at the UN, quoting Daniel Ellsberg that the disclosure was "'potentially more important then the Pentagon Papers,' the secret Vietnam War documents which he had leaked in 1971...Irate cries overseas that U.s. and British leaders were doctoring evidence (forged documents from Niger) to make their case for war barely resonated here, where most journalist and readers accepted official claims that it was an innocent mistake...In the case of these stories, most American journalists--and most citizens--are operating in an environment that takes an essentially benign view of our leaders...Articles you read in the left-wing Guardian, if published stateside, would more likely appear in the Nation than in the Boston Globe..."  After commenting on the press of the '60s and '70s, Greenberg asserts that the trauma of Sept. 11 "marked another turning point.  Surging with patriotism, citizens and journalists granted their leader unwonted latitude in fashioning a response to the terrorist...Even since, the public, including the press, has ascribed to the president a degree of goodwill unprecedented in the post-1960s era." 

Doug Cassel, Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern's Law School, sometimes writes Commentary in the Chicago Tribune during the fall and winter of 2002-03.  In "Public Should Know: Case for war is weak" (10/13/02), Cassel argues  that war would be "unwarranted, unwise, and unworthy of a peace-loving nation...The President...offers little more than speculation about unspecified Iraqi aggression in some unknown future....Iraqi civilians likely will die by the thousands...No threat to nuke Baghdad [in response to a desperate Hussein using chemical or biological weapons] would be credible, because it would mean becoming our own soldiers...al Qaeda could hardly wish for a better recruitment video than televised images of a slaughter of innocents in Baghdad...Once we start a war, events will not be within our control.  If the risks in the most probable scenario are great--and they are--nothing less than an overwhelming case can justify war...Empires in the past have attempted to maintain their domination by aggressive militarism.  None has lasted."

Cassel's NU colleague, visiting professor Jurgen Habermas of Frankfurt University, is an author and philosopher.  He speaks of the emotional gap between the U.S. and Europe.  In an interview in mid-December, Professor Habermas explains that "Many Americans do no realize the extent and the character of the growing rejection of, if no resentment against, the policy of the present American Administration throughout Europe, including in Great Britain.  The emotional gap may well become deeper than it has ever been since the end of World War II" (The Nation, 12/16/02). 

A London professor whose hopes of getting rid of the Ba'th regime "has been the cause of my life", was also a member of the Iraqi Communist Party.  He suggest more emphasis on diplomacy because "the present (Jan. '03) U.S. campaign...is a military crusade, with diplomacy as a reluctant sideshow.  And it is not geared to the interest or participation of the Iraqi people."  In "Opposing War Is Good, But Not Good Enough", he suggests that rather than just complain about the administration, as some hawks complain about doves, the professor's four point plan is:
1.  threaten Hussein with indictment;
2.  offer him safe passage out of Iraq;
3.  list 30 others who should leave the country with him; and
4.  encourage the remaining class-clan "to oust Saddam into exile and sweeten the deal by offering a min-Marshall Plan" (Faleh A. Jabar, author and research fellow at University of London, The Progressive, 1/03). 

A second London professor and writer of moral history wonders, as Jimmy Carter might also, "Can we justify killing the children of Iraq?"  (The Guardian, 2/5). "Anonymity and distance numb the moral imagination...If war is to be justified, at least two conditions have to be met.  The war has to prevent horrors worse than it will cause.  And, as a means of prevention, it has be to the last resort." 

Another London Professor, at the London School of Economics, feels the war would be "a legal and moral duty--one that should be honored by anyone who believes in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...In the 20th century 35 million people died in wars. But three times as many died at the hands of their own governments, victim of Stalin, Hitler, Moa"  Professor Gwyn Prins draws a parallel to liberation of Paris or Rome in World War II, when natives knew civilians would be killed, "but they thought it worth the price." (BBC Viewpoint, 1/31/03). 

Disagreeing with Prins but concerned about empire is University of Maryland Professor of Government of Politics and Senior fellow at the Brookings Institute (Shibley Telhami) feels, "Regardless of our real objective, most Arabs and Muslims will see in the war American imperialism...our commitment to fighting al Qaeda has understandably defined our current relationship with Pakistan in a way that has caused us to put aside democratic values...Democracy cannot be dictated through war." The notion that 'we know what is best for others' is not compatible with democracy" ("The Hidden Cost of War on Iraq", NYTimes, 10/7/02). 

Author and Professor Edward Said of Columbia wonders "When Will We Resist?":  "A generalised indifference among the majority of the population (which may conceal great overall fear, ignorance, and apprehension) has greeted the administration's warmongering" (The Guardian, 1/25/03). Said died in September of 2003.

Princeton international law professor Richard Falk sees U.S. pressure putting the UN in a no-win situation.  The precedent of unilateral was is that it could lead to China using it against Taiwan or "could lead to a nuclear war between India and Pakistan" (The Progressive, "Bush Trashes the UN", 4/03). 

In Foreign Affairs, Betts writes that "the risk [of Hussein using WMD] in an attempt to overthrow him resemble a game of "Russian roulette" (Post, 1/8/03). 

Sandra Mackey looks at history as a guide to the importance of tribes which may lead to a coup before the war ("Think Globally, Act Locally", LATimes, 10/20/02).  Also see "Best Books" FAQ for review of her further contribution to the debate and analysis of Hussein.

Author Thomas Powers wrote Intelligence Wars:  American Secret History from Hitler to al Qaeda.  Powers criticizes the poor and misleading intelligence leading up to war.  In his March 16 New York Times op-ed he warns of reconstruction challenges:  "Recent experience in Kosovo and Afghanistan suggests that the American military finds it hard going to rebuild shattered civil societies, get food and medicine to those who need ti and stop ancient enemies from settling scores after the sun goes down.  But keeping the lights on and the oil pumping will seems easy next to the task of bringing democracy to a country that has never known it, is divided along religious and ethnic lines and is struggling on incomes about a tenth of what they were in 1980...Iraq's unexpected willingness to grant access to UN weapons inspectors presented American intelligence with a challenge to put up or shut up...The CIA doesn't know what Mr. Hussein has, if anything, or even who knows the answer, if anyone...Finding Mr. Hussein's [WMD] is a political as well as military necessity."  Also see "PS FAQs" for more on Powers.

Elie Weisel's "War is the only option" emphasizes the humanity of war.  A Nobel peace prize winner and Holocaust survivor and author, he writes, "We must stop Saddam's killing machine."

Weisel imagines "American, British and Israeli commandos, the best trained in the word, would one night parachute into Iraq.  they would destroy all the missile bases and centres of weapons production and set out again at dawn, if possible, without killing a single Iraqi.  Am I too romantic?  why wouldn't I be?  After all, I am also a novelist...I find war repugnant.  All war.  I know war's monstrous aspects:  blood and corpses everywhere, hungry refugees, devastated cities, orphans, in tears and houses in ruins.  I find no beauty in it...What is to be done?  Bush' goal is to prevent the deadliest biological or nuclear conflict in modern history" (The Guardian, 12/12/02). The Post reports that Weisel does not describe himself as a supporter of war. 

On the eve of the State of the Union speech of January 28, 2003, 41 American Nobel laureates sent a letter to Congress opposing preventative war without broad backing.  "Even with a victory, we believe that the medical, economic, environmental, oral, spiritual, political, and legal consequences of an American preventive attack on Iraq would undermine, not protect, U.S. security and standing the the word."  One signer worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb. (NYTimes, 1/28/03). 

A Nobel prize winner in literature, Gunter Grass, thinks this is "a wanted war" and focuses his concerns on civilians.  (Also see "War" FAQ #4 on civilians).  "We know how people create enemies where none exits.  We know, and have plenty of pictures to illustrate it, what happens in war when the target is not quite hit.  We are familiar with the words for damage and casualties which we are told to accept as inevitable.  We are used to the relatively small number of its own dead that the word's number one ruling power has to count and mourn while the mass of enemy dead, including women and children, go uncounted and are not worth mourning" (The Guardian, "No beginning or end to war",  1/29/03). 

Johns Hopkins University Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Fouad Ajami, writing in the Jan/Feb 2003 Foreign Affairs, concludes his 22 page analysis thusly: "It is the fate of great powers that provide order to do so against the background of a world that takes the protection while it bemoans the heavy hand of the protector.  This new expedition to Mesopotamia would be no exception to that rule."

Joseph Nye (Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government) also talks of three options.  Given that "hawks want to use forced immediately and doves never want to use force," he suggest a third position, owls.  Owls are patient and multilateral.  The Hawks should "heed Teddy Roosevelt's advice about speaking softly when you carry a big stick" (BBC Viewpoint, 1/16/03). 

Nye's Post op-ed "Before War" sees the war as a first test of the Bush doctrine of preventive war.  "Because it represent a drastic departure in American history, it is crucial that we set the right precedent."  After examining the possibility of wars involving terrorist with WMD, and pre-emption, Nye criticizes hawks concerns to go to war because the buildup is costly and hot weather is arriving.  "But cool weather comes more than once a year."  A call for more inspection might no cause Saddam Hussein to disarm "but it could help broaden the coalition."  The Harvard Dean concludes, "Public opinion polls show that the American people are wiling to support the use of force, but only if the U.S. acts with broad support.  President Bush ahs raised the right questions about preventive war.  Now he needs the patience and diplomatic skill to complete the full checklist if he is to produce the right answer."  The Post summarizes Nye's position as "the alternatives to military action have failed."  He wished the U.S. had gone to war before offering resolution 1441 but now must give time for a broader coalition ("Intellectual Left's Doves Take of Role of Hawks", 3/14). Nye is the author of the book The Paradox of American Power. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23263-2003Mar13?language=printer

From Britain, Dan Plesch, a research fellow also contributed to The Guardian's thorough coverage of the countdown to war, writing, "An invasion of Iraq should be characterized as stamping in a puddle of poison." Plesch is a  Senior Research Fellow at The Royal United Services Institute,  (2/16).  What will happen to those WMD?  Who will control them?  "How will we then find these materials?"  He wonders if terrorists could get control of them. 

Opening his March 7 piece, Plesch writes, "The idea that we can invade Iraq to bring democracy and freedom is a confidence trick designed to draw western liberals into providing legitimacy for old-fashioned conquest.  We have been here before.  In the late 19th century, Christina missionaries provided countless factual accounts of the barbarities of the heathen in Africa which were used to justify intervention and, in the end, the conquest, exploitation and partition of the continent...We are told there is no alternative, and that we shouldn't refuse to do something good because we cannot set right every global wrong."  Plesch concludes, "Don't be conned into picking up the White Man's Burden. 

Among Middle Easterners, Iraqi political exile Kamil Mahdi at the University of Exeter doubts Bush and Blair's goal of liberations.  In "Iraqis will not be pawns to Bush and Blair's war game" he writes, "Having failed to convince the British people that war is justified, Tony Blair is now invoking the suffering of the Iraqi people to justify bombing them.  He tells us there will be innocent civilian casualties, but more will die if he and Bush do not go the  war.  Which dossier is he reading from?...the Iraqi people's greatest suffering has been during periods of war and under the sanctions of the 1990s...Despite what Blair claims, this has nothing to do with the interest and rights of the Iraqi people" (The Guardian, 2/20). 

Liberal Egyptian intellectual Sadd Eddin Ibrahim, as quoted by the Post's David Ignatius, says that "wars, bad as they are, they break empires, they break dictators, they leave the ground clear for new systems to be created" (3/18/03). 

A Kurdish leader hopes for a chance to build a democratic Iraq, in his New York Times op-ed of Feb. 5.  "We have watched demonstrators in Washington and other cities chant, 'No to war.'  But the Baathist dictatorship has been waging war for decades.  It has inflicted hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties."

"Events aren't moved by blind change and chance" but by "the hand of a just and faithful God,"
said George Bush as quoted in the New York Times op-ed "How a War Became a Crusade" (3/11 by Jackson Lears).  The writer feels that "the belief that one is carrying out divine purpose can serve legitimate needs and sustain opposition to justice, but it can also promote dangerous simplifications."  Lears wrote of Manifest Destiny, Wilson, and World War I, and "the providentialist outlook" which "promotes tunnel vision, discourages debate and reduced diplomacy to arm-twisting.  Worse of all, it sanitizes the messy actualities of war and its aftermath." 

The Guardian special "Voices on Iraq" published 28 interviews of journalists, experts, and government officials and early February.

One writer provides some humor because he is "losing patience" with his neighbor.