Global Policy Forum

By Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford

The threat of military action against Iraq is now beginning to dominate Western politics. So what light does the long history of Christian thinking on the morality of warfare shed on this?

Some dismiss the 'Just War' tradition as outmoded. But although the context has dramatically changed, with nuclear weapons and terrorism, the principles remain unchanged. Others, understandably but wrongly, see this tradition only as a spurious device for justifying military action which would be undertaken anyway.

What it provides, however, is a set of criteria by which a potential military action might be judged morally licit or illicit. If a potential military incursion into Iraq is judged morally unjustified, it will in fact be on the basis of criteria which have long been part of Just War thinking.

The first criterion is that there must be lawful authority: and this, in fact, means authority at the highest possible level. The logic of this is that in disputes between lower authorities appeal can always be made to a higher one for a resolution without recourse to war. Where there is no higher authority, as in a world composed only of nation states, the state has to be judge and jury in its own cause. In our world, however, there is the United Nations. However imperfect the UN may be, it is a crucial sign that we are groping our way towards a truly international authority.

There were clear UN resolutions to use force to expel Iraq from Kuwait; to preserve the no-fly zones in Bosnia; for the United States to act under Article 51, the right of self defense, in Afghanistan; to intervene in Sierra Leone and, more ambiguously, in Kosovo. But what of an invasion of Iraq now? President Bush and our own Prime Minister will no doubt appeal to the UN resolutions already in force about the terms of the original ceasefire and argue that a build-up of weapons of mass destruction is a breach of the ceasefire which justifies military action being taken.

I do not believe this is authorization enough to justify an invasion aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein. For such military intervention to meet the criterion of lawful authority, a new mandate needs to be sought and agreed by the United Nations.

Second, there must be just cause. When the UN inspectors were expelled from Iraq in 1998, it appeared that Resolution 687 relating to weapons dismantlement had been partly implemented. There was no indication of any weapons-usable nuclear materials remaining in Iraq. There was no evidence that Iraq was manufacturing or testing indigenous ballistic missiles. Most of the prime chemical weapons development and production complex had been dismantled. Much less progress had been made in relation to biological weapons. International experts reporting in 1998 said that Iraq disclosures on biological weapons were 'incomplete, inadequate and technical flawed'.

Inevitably, it is very difficult to discover what has happened since 1998. Defectors earlier reported a network of bunkers where chemical and biological weapons have allegedly been made and where attempts were underway to create a nuclear bomb. More recently the US Congress was told that Saddam Hussein has enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005. Tony Blair has said that a full report will be published of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction but so far nothing has been forthcoming, allegedly because it would not be seen to justify military action.

But is the presence of weapons by themselves, however destructive, even in the hands of someone who certainly cannot be trusted, sufficient cause? A policy of containment and deterrence has worked up until now. There is no evidence that has yet been produced which would justify a change in policy.

Third, every effort must have been made to resolve the dispute first by peaceful means. This suggests a clear moral obligation to go on pressing for the re-admittance of UN Weapons Inspectors into Iraq. We should not yet give up on this. Even if Saddam Hussein's present initiative to discuss the issue further does not bear fruit, we should persevere.

Fourth, a judgment has to be made that the war will not unleash more evils than are already being endured. Here it is possible to paint an apocalyptic scenario, with the whole Middle East in flames, as King Abdullah of Jordan has recently stressed, despotic regimes in Islamic countries being toppled and Iraq dismembered and in a state of civil war. Some predicted such dire consequences over an attack on Afghanistan - and were proved wrong, as the doyen of military commentators, Sir Michael Howard, had the grace to acknowledge. But most of the factors which made success possible in Afghanistan are missing in relation to Iraq.

Fifth, and arising out of the fourth criterion, there must be a reasonable chance of success. But if we are to evaluate success then the war aims must be crystal clear. This is far from being the case, with endless possible scenarios being played out in Washington.

Although the Just War criteria were formulated by Christian thinkers in a Christian culture, they do in fact appeal to basic moral considerations shared by all human beings. It is this that accounts for the fact that they provided the basis for international law and the military law of most countries.

It is also clear that moral principles and political judgments are inextricably intertwined. Political and military judgments are also moral judgments and moral judgments cannot be separated from an assessment of the consequences of any proposed course of action.

The main task of the Churches at a time like this is to put forward and press these criteria, probing and testing whether or not they might be met. In the end political and military judgments have to be made and those who hold power have the awesome task of making them. Churchmen do not hold power and do not have to make those decisions. But on the basis of what we have and know at the moment those criteria are not being met.

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