The Iraq war's main consequences will not be on the battlefield. They will come later, and will depend on whether US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair can justify their onslaught on a largely defenseless population. They launched this war for certain declared reasons, all of which were heatedly debated around the world. If they are vindicated, then the war could conceivably bring a safer world. If their arguments remain unproved or are disproved, then the war will incite instability. In that case, a critical step toward healing the world would be their quick departure from office.
The war was not and could not be justified to the world on the basis that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a tyrant. Justification, if it exists, rests on the danger Saddam's regime posed. Bush and Blair made four claims -- Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction; those weapons pose a grave, immediate threat; UN inspections were not eliminating that threat; the threat could best be eliminated by war.
The first claim will be the easiest to verify. Bush and Blair talked repeatedly about stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, massive underground and mobile units to produce or launch such wea-pons and active programs to obtain nuclear weapons. It is incumbent upon Bush and Blair to prove their case, and to prove it in the face of worldwide suspicion that the US and UK security agencies might plant phony evidence. For this reason, independent UN experts should assess any evidence that is uncovered. If no evidence is produced of weapons of mass destruction on a threatening scale, then both Bush and Blair would deserve to be finished politically, no matter what else happens in Iraq.
The second claim will be trickier to prove. Bush and Blair must show that any weapons of mass destruction that are recovered posed a grave and urgent threat. We know that Iraq at one time possessed chemical and biological weapons, because the US sold them to Iraq. The test is not whether traces of those weapons remain, but whether those weapons were poised for use in threatening amounts.
If the Iraqis launch an attack with such weapons, this would demonstrate that the weapons were ready for use. Whether they posed any real threat outside Iraq's borders, or would have been used in the absence of the current war, must still be assessed.
The third claim is hugely contentious. Bush and Blair should demonstrate that the UN inspection process was failing. This can be done by showing that the Iraqis were simply hiding the evidence at sites visited by the inspectors and declared free of weapons. There should be a systematic review of sites that were visited. There should also be an explanation, if weapons of mass destruction are uncovered at other sites, as to why the inspectors could not have found such weapons in a realistic period of time.
The fourth claim will be subject to wild propaganda on both sides. Was the war justified in terms of costs and benefits, and was war really the last resort? This will depend on an objective assessment of the costs of the war in terms of loss of life, destruction of property, economic impact within Iraq, spillovers into other forms of violence such as terrorism, and geopolitical consequences.
To date, Bush and Blair have failed to make the case to the world, with the partial exception of their own countries. The American people have been treated to a spectacle of jingoism, fear mongering, confusion of Iraq with Osama bin Laden's terrorists, and simple patriotism.
None of this has swayed the rest of the world, which views the war with a mixture of disdain and alarm. This would change if evidence on the four points is mustered.
When the 13 British colonies in North America launched their own War of Independence, Thomas Jefferson understood that "the decent respect to the opinions of mankind" required an explanation for that war, which he set forth in the Declaration of Independence. The need for such an explanation, backed by rigorous evidence, is no less necessary today.
If the arguments for this war are not proved, the consequences will be profound. Propaganda, streets lined with cheering Iraqis, amazement over the prowess of US smart bombs, would not distract us from an awful truth -- that Bush and Blair broke the world peace, engaged in massive premeditated killing, and did so against overwhelming global opinion. Healing today's divided world could start only with fresh political leadership in both the US and UK, and a strong assertion of UN authority.
Given the terrible costs, I hope that this war will prove justified, though I have my doubts based on the current evidence. If compelling evidence proves that weapons of mass destruction were at hand; that they were poised for use on a threatening scale; that the UN inspectors had poor prospects of uncovering and dismantling those weapons, then we must acknowledge the arguments made by Bush and Blair. Even in those circumstances, war might well have been unwise compared to a policy of containment. Still, the war would then at least have made some sense. The horrors of a completely senseless war are indeed almost too frightening to contemplate.
Jeffrey Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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