Despite growing opposition, the Bush administration still appears to be pushing for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Before the public and Congress allow such a dangerous and unprecedented use of American military power to move forward, they should seriously consider the following:

The United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq in 1990 applied only to the enforcement of previous resolutions calling for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, nothing more. Iraq remains in violation of some subsequent resolutions, but the United Nations has not authorized the use of force to enforce them. Without the explicit authorization of the U.N. Security Council or an attack by Iraq against the United States or its allies, a war against Iraq would be illegal.

In the event of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, there would likely be an outbreak of widespread anti-American protests, perhaps even attacks against American interests. Some pro-Western regimes could become vulnerable to internal radical forces as part of such a reaction.

3. There is no evidence of Iraqi links to al-Qaeda or other anti-American terrorists.

Reports of an alleged meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence officer and one of the hijackers of the doomed airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center has been investigated by FBI, CIA and Czech intelligence and were found groundless. None of the hijackers were Iraqi, no major figure in al-Qaeda is Iraqi, and no funds to al-Qaeda have been traced to Iraq. The decidedly secular Baathist regime in Baghdad and the Islamic fundamentalist al-Qaeda have long been in vehement opposition to one another. Iraq's links to terrorism peaked in the 1980s and were limited to small radical secular groups like Abu Nidal, which are now largely defunct. The State Department's latest annual study, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2001, did not list any acts of international terrorism linked to the government of Iraq.

Iraq has certainly developed weapons of mass destruction in the past, but there is no evidence they have such weapons now. The International Atomic Energy Agency has categorically declared that Iraq no longer has a nuclear program. UNSCOM reportedly destroyed at least 95 percent of Iraq's chemical weapons capability. The state of Iraq's biological weapons capability is less well-known, but virtually all of Iraq's medium-range missiles and other delivery systems have been accounted for and destroyed. Since Saddam Hussein has demonstrated that he cares first and foremost about his own survival, he presumably recognizes that any effort to use weapons of mass destruction or to pass them on to a terrorist group would inevitably lead to his own destruction. However, with nothing to lose in the event of a U.S. invasion, it would dramatically increase the likelihood of his ordering the use of any weapons of mass destruction he may have retained.

Iraq's current armed forces are barely one-third their pre-war strength. Iraq's Navy is virtually nonexistent and its Air Force is just a fraction of what it was before the war. Military spending by Iraq has been estimated at barely one-tenth of its levels in the 1980s. They are believed to no longer have functioning missiles. None of Iraq's immediate neighbors have expressed any concern about a possible Iraqi invasion in the foreseeable future.

The best way to stop the potential of Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction would be through resuming United Nations inspections, which -- despite episodes of Iraqi non-cooperation and harassment -- were largely successful. It was Washington's ill-considered decision to misuse the inspection teams for spying operations and the decision to engage in an intense four-day bombing campaign against Iraq that led Saddam Hussein to cease his cooperation completely in December 1998. However, the Bush administration has shown little interest in pushing for a resumption of inspections, declaring their intention to invade anyway. In addition, there is no reason why the current emphasis on deterrence will not continue to work, particularly with the strict sanctions already in place on imports of technologies that could be used for weapons production.

Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics and Chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He is and author of the forthcoming book Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press). If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper executive editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.