Volume CXXXII, Number 5 October 18, 2002 f

Attack Iraq
TODD BUELL
COLUMNIST

The last two fall breaks I have hosted large groups of friends in my hometown, which is near Acadia National Park. Each year we have been amidst the calm of the park while storms were developing in the political world. Last year, on a crisp and clear autumn day, we sat in a Bar Harbor café as word arrived that the United States was beginning its bombing in Afghanistan.

Despite the anxiety following the attacks of September 11, the nation's sense of clarity and purpose was defined. We had been attacked and we were "bringing justice" to those who had attacked us.
This year most of our time in Acadia was spent under cloudy skies and I couldn't help but view the weather as a metaphor for the political times in which we live today. Ours is a world that is gray, cloudy, and uncertain. The clarity of purpose that encompassed all of our military activities last year has mostly evaporated. Our country is nearly evenly divided on the merits of a war against Iraq.

I do not say this as a way of asserting moral superiority over those who oppose an attack on Iraq. This imminent war is not as clearly justified as the invasion of Afghanistan was last year. This is an attack that warrants thoughtful and reasoned debate and we should not judge each other's "patriotism" based on opinions in this war. However, I believe an attack on Iraq is appropriate.

President Bush outlines the justification for an attack on the notion that Hussein is evil and is amassing weapons of mass of destruction. Bush defends these accusations fairly well. It is common knowledge that Hussein has engaged in mass genocide against his own people as is beautifully and graphically outlined in an article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker last March.

Hussein has not allowed weapons inspectors into his country since 1998; this is a direct violation of U.N. resolutions that Iraq signed allowing for the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Therefore it is likely that Hussein is cultivating weapons of mass destruction, which could include chemical weapons, biological weapons, and perhaps even nuclear weapons.

Some argue that Hussein is a survivalist; he will not attack aggressively and thus we should not provoke him with an invasion. I disagree with this for two reasons.

First of all, he has attacked aggressively. He invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, which prompted the U.N. resolution authorizing the Gulf War. Secondly, we cannot allow him to collect weapons of mass destruction because even if he doesn't use them himself, he could potentially hand them off to Al-Qaeda or other terrorist networks.

We also know that Hussein attempted to cultivate nuclear weapons in the early 1980s but a covert Israeli raid thwarted that effort. As George Will pointed out in a November 2001 column, Hussein's lack of a nuke made our invasion of Iraq easier during the Gulf War. Therefore, it is imperative that we keep Hussein from acquiring a nuclear weapon because if he has one, he could invade his neighbors with impunity.

Regardless of his actual arsenal, we cannot allow Saddam Hussein to stay in power because to do so would undermine the relevance of the United Nations. Hussein has repeatedly defied the United Nations since agreeing to resolutions allowing for an end to the Gulf War. If the United Nations will not force him to comply with unfettered weapons inspections or authorize his removal from power than they are truly "irrelevant" as President Bush intimated in his September 12 speech to the U.N. General Assembly. The United Nations must recognize that sometimes force is required to secure global stability.

Sitting anywhere in Acadia National Park reminds one both of man's meekness among nature's largesse and of the fortune that we have in the United States to possess the foresight and prosperity to preserve such lands. Tyrants do not respect nature and Saddam Hussein is a tyrant whose reign in Iraq threatens the security of the United States and the world. Allowing him to cultivate weapons of mass destruction not only makes our buildings, airplanes, and transportation vulnerable, it also threatens our freedom to enjoy the small things in life, such as national parks.

Seeing the beaming smiles of dozens of my friends this past weekend, I know that these small pleasures, national parks, community theaters, little league baseball, etc. are what stimulate and define us as Americans, and that we must fight to save them before Saddam, or a beneficiary of his malicious generosity such as Al-Qaeda, robs us of our soul.