Preemptive self-defense in an age of weapons of mass destruction: operation Iraqi freedom.

Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

President George W. Bush (1)

I. THE FIGHT OVER PREEMPTION

With the promulgation of the Bush Doctrine, President George W. Bush announced a U.S. policy of preemptive action against terrorist states. (2) President Bush had previously identified Iraq, together with Iran and North Korea, as part of an "axis of evil" bent on the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). (3) The Bush Administration asserted that the danger of WMD in the hands of Saddam Hussein was so great that it justified a preemptive attack on Iraq before these weapons could be developed and used. (4)

The Administration made the case against Iraq in speeches by Vice President Dick Cheney on August 26, 2002, (5) by Secretary of State Colin Powell before the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003 (6), and in addresses by President Bush before the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 12, 2002 (7) and on U.S. television on October 7, 2002. (8) Detailed charges against Iraq also are set out in the joint resolution for the use of military force drafted by the Administration and adopted by Congress. (9) Preemption supplants the containment strategy the United States had pursued against Iraq in the decade following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. (10)