A good place to post this, okay it's cut and paste but it's a good read too.
http://morans.blogspot.com/2003_10_01_morans_archive.html
Letter I wish I wrote
This appeared yesterday in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Breaking the law
Re: "The 'imminence' spin," Commentary Page, Oct. 19:
It might be true, as Jonah Goldberg claims, that George W. Bush "never said that the threat from Iraq was 'imminent.' " But to anyone familiar with international law, such a claim only further condemns the Bush administration.
According to international law, a country may defend itself when attacked, or launch a preemptive strike if it believes an attack to be imminent.
However, it's illegal to launch a "preventive" war, to strike a country simply because it might, someday, become an imminent threat.
Yet the U.S. struck Iraq without any hard evidence of such operational deployments. No operational weapons of mass destruction were used or found during (or immediately after) the invasion.
Not only is the burden of proof on the attacker, but attempts to substitute evidence of Iraq's weapons "programs," "plans" or "desires" will not suffice.
Walter C. Uhler
Philadelphia