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If there are any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they need to be found and, if they are still viable, destroyed. That is obvious. The US-led deposition of the Hussein regime, however, does not depend upon such finds being made for its justification.

A convincing argument can be made for the overthrow of Hussein based upon his human rights abuses alone, but that is not the subject of this piece. My contention is this: Even if Hussein had not behaved abominably toward his own people and if it could be proven that he did not possess weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion, the invasion would nonetheless still have been justified.

The point is not the status of Saddam’s WMDs at the time of the invasion but the fact that it was entirely reasonable for the coalition governments to conclude that he probably did possess them and that he was likely to use them in an aggressive act of terrorism. Prudent action does not require indisputable proof for its justification. Moreover, the gray area in this case – the small-but-vital cleft between probability and fact – existed only because of Saddam’s own posturing and non-cooperation.

The boy who impersonates the howl of a wolf and is shot by wary villagers has only himself to blame. Saddam’s case is really that simple. The villagers acted sensibly. Some dangers are just too fearsome for the propagation of hoaxes about them to be tolerated.

At this point we should briefly survey the facts, some of which were recently laid out in a concise commentary by Daniel Pipes in the New York Post, which I was alerted to by an article at this website:

Saddam had possessed and used WMDs in the past
Saddam had perpetrated a brutal aggressive invasion upon a neighboring country
Saddam had launched an unprovoked attack on Israel during the Kuwait conflict
Saddam had broken the March 1991 ceasefire agreement
Saddam had not complied with the UN Security Council’s demand that he rid Iraq of WMDs
Saddam had not cooperated with UN inspectors from 1991 to 1998
Saddam had attempted to arrange the assassination of a United States President
Saddam had thrown out weapons inspectors in 1998
Saddam had not fully cooperated after the return of inspectors in 2002
Saddam had failed to provide evidence of Iraq’s alleged destruction of biological agents (including “about 2,641 gallons” of anthrax, according to Hans Blix)

If Saddam had destroyed all of his WMDs by 2002, why did he not allow inspectors unqualified access to Iraqi scientists and related personnel? This refusal alone was guaranteed to give an appearance of guilt.

Saddam had demonstrated the will and capability to launch a terrorist attack against the United States or any other country of his choosing. Saddam had been defeated in battle but had refused to honor the ceasefire agreement. Saddam gave the coalition governments an option: invade, or risk attack. He seems to have supposed that Britain and the United States would back down.

It was Saddam himself that continually threatened and taunted the United States until it could not afford not to respond. Even without WMDs being discovered, and even if we ignore Hussein’s appalling human rights record, the invasion of Iraq was entirely morally justifiable.

I expect that Saddam did still possess WMDs and that evidence will be forthcoming, but if that turns out not to be the case, I shall not be losing any sleep over it. The political opponents of George Bush and Tony Blair will doubtless continue to try to make it an issue, but I think it is perfectly clear that the coalition leaders acted wisely and commendably.

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