Why We Should Kill Saddam

IN THE MIDDLE OF A CRISIS WITH IRAQ DURING PRESIDENT Clinton's first term, I wondered aloud in an Oval Office meeting about the prospects of killing Saddam Hussein. Before I could finish the sentence, the then national-security adviser Tony Lake looked up to the light fixtures and said: ""He was just kidding. We're not planning anything like that.'' Of all the words you just can't say in the modern White House, like ""shred this,'' none is more taboo than ""assassination.''

For good reason. Most of our cold-war efforts to kill foreign leaders like Fidel Castro (we planned to use exploding cigars and poisoned scuba suits) bordered on the comical--and rarely worked. So in the wake of the Church Committee's revelation of CIA abuses in places like Cuba, Chile and the Congo, President Ford signed a sweeping, one-sentence executive order: ""No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.''

But what's unlawful--and unpopular with the allies--is not necessarily immoral. So now that I'm not in the White House, I can say what I couldn't say then: we should seriously explore the assassination option. Even though the current crisis may be subsiding temporarily, we don't know what the future holds. A direct attack on Saddam would no doubt be politically risky--the president, concerned about his place in history, would be torn between the desire to get rid of a bully and the worry that an assassination plan gone awry would embarrass him late in his term. But the president should think about it: the gulf-war coalition is teetering and we have not eliminated Saddam's capacity to inflict mass destruction. That's why killing him may be the more sensible--and moral--course over the long run.

Philosophers have long argued that there are times when murdering a murderer is not only necessary but noble. ""Grecian nations give the honors of the gods to those men who have slain tyrants,'' wrote Cicero. Targeting Saddam also seems in accord with the ""just war'' principles first developed by Augustine and Aquinas. We've exhausted other efforts to stop him, and killing him certainly seems more proportionate to his crimes and discriminate in its effect than massive bombing raids that will inevitably kill innocent civilians. To those who argue that assassination is the moral equivalent of terrorism, Michael Walzer's ""Just and Unjust Wars'' reminds us that ""randomness is the crucial feature of terrorist activity.'' Terrorists kill the innocent to coerce the powerful. Assassination, by contrast, is the least random act of war. Relaxing the moral norm against it is a regrettable but justifiable price to pay when confronted with someone like Saddam who is unique in his capacity to inflict evil on his own people and the rest of the world. It's one of the extremely rare circumstances where killing can be a humanitarian act that saves far more lives than it risks.

But can we do it? Another tenet of just-war theory is that the act of war must have a reasonable prospect of success. Here's where the assassination option gets trickier, though the legal prohibition is not as flat as it appears at first glance: an executive order has the force of law, but it's essentially an obligation a president imposes on himself. If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it. The president would no doubt pay a heavy political price if the operation failed, but he would be a huge winner if it succeeded.

Overcoming the practical difficulties is much more problematic. Experts like former CIA director Robert Gates have said that assassination is a ""non-option'' because Saddam is so elusive and well protected. That's the strongest argument against assassination. But it loses some force when stacked against the alternatives: an indefinite extension of the sanctions that punishes the most vulnerable Iraqis without weakening Saddam or eliminating his ability to build weapons of mass destruction; or a massive military campaign that will crack the gulf-war coalition, risk allied troops and kill innocent Iraqis without ensuring Saddam's fall.

So what could the president's directive authorize? First, we could offer to provide money and material to Iraqi exiles willing to lead an effort to overthrow Saddam. (We tried this in the first term and it didn't work--but we should try again.) The second option is a targeted airstrike against the homes or bunkers where Saddam is most likely to be hiding. President Reagan came close when he authorized this type of attack against Libya's Muammar Kaddafi. Though Saddam is even more difficult to track, we shouldn't pass up this opportunity if presented with reliable information on his whereabouts. But the ideal option is an inside job: making contact with military leaders who are willing to risk taking matters into their own hands. This scenario carries the most risk for those involved--remember the son-in-law Saddam murdered for insubordination--and there is no guarantee that the next Iraqi president won't be another Saddam. If someone came forward, however, we should entertain giving him direct help.

A misreading of the law or misplaced moral squeamishness should not stop the president from talking about assassination. He should order up the options and see if it's possible. If we can kill Saddam, we should.