Editorial: Case not made
Cheney fails to establish casus belli
Sacramento Bee
Lead Editorial
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, August 29, 2002
Vice President Dick Cheney has joined the national debate over whether the United States should remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by force. In a speech that clearly reflects Bush administration views, Cheney's litany of Hussein's crimes was long and compelling, but it was a mixture of old news and conjecture.
No one can doubt that Hussein is a menace who has done evil things. But that does not prove that Saddam is poised to strike again. What's missing is a rationale for a pre-emptive military strike against a regime that, however odious, has yet to be shown to be linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network or to be planning aggressive actions against its neighbors or the United States.
If evidence exists that Hussein poses an imminent danger, neither Cheney's speech nor anything President Bush or others in his administration have said to date provides it. If the casus belli is that compelling, surely they can make the case without undermining U.S. intelligence sources and methods. The stakes are too high not to do that, and Congress must raise its voice to challenge the White House.
In his speech, Cheney sought to discredit the warnings of a growing number of prominent dissenters within the Republican Party -- including Reps. Henry Hyde and Dick Armey and Brent Scowcroft, a widely respected former national security adviser to the first President Bush -- by suggesting that their caution amounts to "wishful thinking." But the questions remain: How does the Bush team know that Hussein is planning to attack his neighbors? Is he really likely, should he acquire nuclear weapons, to engage in nuclear blackmail, thus making already wary U.S. allies even more skittish?
It's conceivable that Americans may not know until it's too late, one way or another, what weapons Hussein has and if or how he will use them. But however evil he may be, he is not crazy and seems unlikely to provoke a devastating U.S. military response by breaking out of the containment he's been in for more than a decade.
Cheney's argument is but one contribution to an unfolding debate that is welcome and necessary. It is not and must not be the final word. What's troubling is that the president has qualified his repeated promises to consult Congress, the public and U.S. allies with statements that he will act on his own based on "the latest intelligence." In that context, one wonders what he means by consult.
While U.S. forces almost surely would prevail against Iraq, committing them to an enterprise whose broader consequences are so uncertain is a grave responsibility for which the president should be held to account. He must do more to persuade Americans that a decision he may already have made is a necessary one.
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