Justify the War on Iraq

United Nations arms inspectors will return to their work in Iraq on Wednesday after a four-year hiatus. Backed by a new Security Council resolution, the inspectors are equipped with new tools that should make inspections easier and a new guarantee of unfettered access that will make their job possible.

But for all that is new in Iraq these days, the repeated targeting of and firing upon American and British aircraft in the no-flight zones is a disappointing reminder that much still remains the same. The American Central Command confirmed that Iraqi forces have fired on allied aircraft more than 30 times since the Security Council resolution was passed. Since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein expelled the U.N. inspectors in 1998, these attacks have been commonplace.

Paragraph eight of the resolution prohibits Iraqi forces from perpetrating “hostile acts” against U.N. personnel or member states who are acting to “uphold any Council resolution.” It has not taken long for Iraq to breach the resolution, but this can hardly be described as a material breach—and it is certainly not enough justification for a war against Iraq. Though the White House has promised to “assess and review” whether these attacks violate its zero tolerance policy, it can only come to the conclusion that this violation is not worth scrapping the arms inspection process.

The United States and other members of the U.N. must not let Iraq escape from its agreement to allow “immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access” to all sites. This is the only way that arms inspections will work. But by the same token, the U.S. should not be the one to short-circuit the process by prematurely starting a war. Since other nations like France and Russia have a higher standard for “material breach”—the phrase in the resolution that defines when the U.N. will authorize war against Iraq—President Bush must wait until there is no question Hussein has violated the resolution.

If and when Iraq sabotages the arms inspections, the United States will have the material breach it needs to convince the world that war is justified. Acting before then will only convince the rest of the world that Bush has been disingenuous all along in his calls for arms inspections. There should be no doubt that Hussein is the one flouting international law, not President Bush.