1441 was wrong

I support the coming war in Iraq. I believe that Saddam presents a clear and present danger, not only to the US but also to the entire civilized world. I just have a little problem with the process we used to arrive at the conclusion.

The US Constitution provides for due process. The burden of proof in any trial is always on the prosecution. We do this to prevent forcing a defendant to try to prove a negative. By forcing the state to investigate the issue and to prove the truth we help to ensure a fair and accurate hearing (This of course all assumes that everyone involved acts in a completely ethical manner and performs their job flawlessly. Since the system is run by humans that isn’t always the case, so we have an appeals process to right wrongs.).

UN Security Council Resolution 1441 runs completely counter to that idea of fairness. In 1441, the UN required Iraq to prove that it did not have weapons of mass destruction (prove a negative). Because of the always fluid situation, it could be argued that the data provided as the proof of WMD non-existence is out of date and therefore Iraq is in material breach (after all they could build more weapons after the report was delivered).

Colin Powell rectified this mistake during his presentation to the UN Security Council. The information he provided is sufficient and damning enough, in my mind, to prove the US position that Saddam is enough of a threat to risk sending troops into harms way. The prosecuter proved the case despite the resolution requiring Iraq to disprove it.

When we go to war, we should not use a material breach of 1441 as the basis for our decision. Many will argue that 1441 is sufficient as it was written by an international body to enforce an international decision. I think that that is a crock. One of the great virtues of the US is our willingness to hold ourselves to a higher standard than the rest of the world expects of us or themselves. 1441 puts an undue burden on Iraq. It doesn’t meet the standards of US justice and should therefore be unacceptable to us for making a war decision.

Our war decision should be based on factual, solid, reliable evidence. What Powell presented at the UN meets that standard. If the government is not willing to go to war based on what has been presented, they need to present more evidence or need to do more investigating. We can let our friends and allies take shelter in supporting us due to a violation of 1441 (which there have been real, documented breaches of the resolution), but we need to hold ourselves to the higher standard.

If we’re going to send our military into combat to defend our way of life, we owe it to them to live that way of life. Period.

UPDATE: Looks like Steven Den Beste has gotten a link to an article that makes a similar argument, but with a very different conclusion. I believe that Mr. Den Beste is correct in arguing that the innocent until proven guilty concept is unworkable in international politics, but I also think that the preponderance of the evidence is an acceptable standard. The US has met the preponderance standard. I'm not thrilled with the prospect of an upcoming war, but we have a legitimate reason for going and the alternative would really, really suck.