The Briefer: Well, the planet Earth is divided into nation-states. The mightiest nation, the United States of America, with 280 million people, a $400 billion defense budget, and a GDP of $10 trillion — has attacked Iraq, a nation of 25 million people, with a defense budget of $1.4 billion, and a GDP of $80 billion.

Q: How do American leaders justify initiating this war?

B: Their fundamental rationale is that Iraq poses a threat to American lives.

Q: I'm confused. I thought you said the United States, the giant nation, initiated the war.

B: It did.

Q: But how could Iraq, outspent 350 times militarily, pose so great a threat to the U.S. as to justify all this suffering?

B: U.S. leaders fundamentally justified their attack by claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that threatened U.S. citizens. In a March 6, 2003, press conference, the U.S. president, a man named Bush, declared, "My job is to protect the American people ... I put my hand on the Bible and took that oath. And that's exactly what I am going to do." By "Bible" he referred to a book he believes is inspired by an all-powerful God who guides his actions against enemies who believe their very different God guides their activities against him.

Q: What evidence did he present that Iraq intended to use these weapons against the U.S.?

B: None. While most people believed Iraq possessed such weapons, the main U.S. intelligence agency — the CIA — said it was unlikely to use them unless attacked by the U.S.

Those aliens ask such annoying questions! But, then, so do you. I know what you're about to ask. You're about to ask, "But what about Kenneth M. Pollack, the Armchair Hawk's Best Friend®? He wrote a book and everything!" Space alien is way ahead of you...

Q: But wait, I see a rational argument. If Iraq possessed these weapons of mass destruction, didn't it make sense to go after them now while Saddam's regime is weaker rather than wait until it has grown stronger?

B: No. A former CIA analyst named Kenneth Pollack wrote an influential book advocating an invasion of Iraq — but he said that before attacking, the U.S. first needed to build domestic and international support, decapitate al-Qaida, fulfill its broken promises to rebuild another country it had invaded named Afghanistan, and resolve a major territorial dispute in a nation called Israel. By attacking Iraq before taking such actions, and inflaming world and Muslim opinion, it is the U.S. that is weakened, not Iraq.

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