The judgment about whether or not the United States, my country and government, would be morally justified in invading Iraq for the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power is an important, complex and tough matter to probe.

No matter how difficult, however, I think each citizen of the U.S. democracy has a duty to work out a personal judgment on this matter. We undermine our democracy to the extent we abdicate from the responsibility to assess critical policies our country undertakes in our name and on our behalf. I know persons of good will can assess the same evidence and reasons offered for such an invasion and come to different moral and empirical conclusions about whether an invasion is warranted or justified. In the context of this campus, I imagine my colleagues and students will come to different judgments than I do, and I respect that.

In my own case, having paid close attention to the reasons President George W. Bush and members of his administration have set out, having studied the White Paper that British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued and having thought through criteria of just war theory and prescriptions of international law as best I can, I do not think such an invasion is warranted, and I do not think it would be justifiable.

I do think Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is trying to acquire more. But I also think the United States and the international community can continue to contain Iraq/Hussein and continue to ratchet up pressure on him to comply with United Nations resolutions – possibly through coercive inspections, as Jessica Tuchman Mathews, among others, has proposed. I conclude, however, that actual invasion is a step too far. Since I do not think that the United States or any other country, even Israel, is under a grave and imminent threat of attack by Iraq, under the current circumstances I cannot consider an American invasion of Iraq as justified under the rubric of anticipatory self-defense. Instead, I view it as “preventive war” that falls on the spectrum as very close to outright aggression.

I worry an invasion, rather than increasing national and international security, may lead to a wider war. I worry an invasion undertaken to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction might provoke the use of weapons of mass destruction. (My constant nightmare since Sept. 11, 2001, has been to think that in five or 10 years, we will look back on 9-11 as having been the start of a third world war.) I worry that soldiers who occupy Iraq after the invasion will be constantly assaulted and harassed by Iraqis. Even if the Iraqis would be glad to be rid of Hussein, that does not mean they would want to be occupied by American troops.

I do not want to be another Neville Chamberlain. But I recall that when President John F. Kennedy told the American public he might need to lead the country/world to nuclear war with the former USSR because of a security threat from Soviet missiles in Cuba, he went on television and showed the world recent and compelling photographs of the missile sites. And I recall the action he took first in response to that clear security threat was not to launch an attack against the USSR, but to establish a blockade – in itself a dangerous decision, but one that ultimately prevented an all-out war. In taking action to counter Saddam Hussein, I want to the Bush Administration to choose a policy option analogous to that blockade – not go right to invasion.

For these reasons, I have decided to join a national protest this Saturday, Oct. 26, against a U.S. invasion of Iraq (provided the march remains non-violent and peaceful – if any participants start to hijack the march into anything disruptive, ugly or violent, I will immediately withdraw.)

If anyone else wants to participate, the protest begins at 11 a.m. in Constitution Gardens, adjacent to the Vietnam Veterans War emorial, at 21st Street and Constitution Avenue, NW. From there the marchers will proceed to the White House.

Professor Marilyn McMorrow, RSCJ, is a professor in the Department of Government.