Bush responds to critics, arguing U.S. must ensure regime change in Iraq

Princetonians on all sides of the debate over Iraq agreed last night that President Bush's speech laid out the case for regime change with new forcefulness, but campus peace activists were not persuaded by his speech.

Last night's speech was the president's most thorough effort yet to address concerns of those who oppose war, but campus activists were not satisfied with the president's reasoning.

Bush explained why he thinks Iraq is unique and should be attacked even as other hostile regimes are left alone.

"By its past and present actions, by its technological capabilities, by the merciless nature of its regime, Iraq is unique," Bush said.

Recent satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding production facilities for chemical and biological weapons, as well as renewing its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. This revelation is a reason for acting now, Bush argued.

Taufiq Rahim '04, chair of the Fields Center governance board, complained that the speech would limit debate.

"The path to war is set," he said. "There is no other path set by his speech."

The news of satellite photos was hard evidence, and should be persuasive to antiwar activists, said Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky '04, chairman of the Princeton Committee Against Terrorism.

But some students disagreed.

"He didn't present any new evidence for the war. He did address some of the really important questions that have been raised, but his answers were not satisfactory," said Curtis Deutsch GS, an organizer of the Princeton Peace Network, which opposes military action. "His arguments do not point the way to a unilateral U.S. war . . . There's plenty of further diplomatic pressure." "He did mention Iraq's violations of international law and used this as a reason why we have to take action, but he didn't ever mention our obligations under international law, which preclude our unilaterally going in for regime change, when there is no imminent threat," he added.

If Iraq were to develop weapons of mass destruction, Deutsch said, that would not necessarily make it an imminent threat to the United States.

"The U.S. has more weapons than anyone, and that does not make us an imminent threat to anyone, except possibly by Iraq at this point," he said.

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Politics professor Robert George, who has advised the Bush administration in the past about the ethics of using military force, said the officials deciding whether to go to war are in a difficult situation because they have to make a choice based on incomplete information.

"There's room for people to disagree," he added. Going to war might lead to bad results, he said, but "not going to war could result in disastrous consequences."

George criticized campus liberals who are unconditionally opposed to war.

"What they seem to be looking for is the idea that you can only go to war if you're absolutely certain that there is no possible alternative to going to war, or that going to war will not result in bad side effects," he said. "We do not live in a world where we can have certainty in a case like this. There can be disastrous consequences either way."

Policy makers probably have more information than the public, George said, but probably do not have as much information as they would like.

"On the one hand they're weighing the possibility of Saddam getting weapons that will enable him to extort concessions from his potential victims," he said. "On the other hand, the decision to got to war will inevitably involve some noncombatant deaths, and deaths and injuries of our own soldiers and allied soldiers."

"There are [also] less tangible factors," George added. "We don't know whether Pakistan or other moderate Arab states will be destabilized. The assessment of that possibility is for the policy maker.

"Will Saddam's army go the distance with him? I'm inclined to think that they will not, but that's another imponderable judgment."