As described in Human Rights Watch’s December 2003 report, US efforts to bomb leadership targets were an abysmal failure. The 0-for-50 record reflected a targeting method that was dangerously indiscriminate, allowing bombs to be dropped on the basis of evidence suggesting little more than the presence of a leader somewhere in a community. Substantial civilian casualties were the foreseeable result.

Coalition ground forces also used cluster munitions near populated areas, with a predictable loss of civilian life. After Human Rights Watch found that roughly a quarter of the civilian deaths in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia were caused by the use of cluster bombs in populated areas, the US Air Force substantially curtailed this practice. But the US Army apparently never learned this lesson. In responding to Iraqi attacks, US Army troops regularly used cluster munitions in populated areas, causing substantial losses of life. Such disregard for civilian life is incompatible with a genuinely humanitarian intervention.

Better, Rather than Worse

A humanitarian intervention should be reasonably calculated to make things better rather than worse for the people being rescued. One is tempted to say that anything is better than living under the tyranny of Hussein, but unfortunately, it is possible to imagine scenarios that are even worse. Vicious as his rule was, chaos or abusive civil war might well become even deadlier, and it is too early to say whether such violence might still emerge in Iraq.

Still, when the war was launched in March 2003, the US and British governments clearly hoped that the Iraqi government would topple quickly and that the Iraqi nation would soon be put on the path to democracy. Their failure to equip themselves with the number of troops needed to stabilize post-war Iraq diminished the likelihood of this rosy scenario coming to pass. However, the balance of considerations before the war probably supported the conclusion that Iraqis would be better off if Hussein’s regime were ended. But that one factor does not make the intervention a humanitarian one.

UN Approval

There is considerable value in receiving the endorsement of the UN Security Council or another major multilateral body before launching a humanitarian intervention. Convincing others of the validity of a proposed intervention is a good way to guard against pretextual or unjustified action. An international commitment also increases the likelihood that adequate personnel and resources will be devoted to the intervention and its aftermath. And approval by the UN Security Council, in particular, ends the debate about the legality of an intervention.

However, in extreme situations, UN Security Council approval should not be required. In its current state, the UN Security Council is simply too imperfect to make it the sole mechanism for legitimizing humanitarian intervention. Its permanent membership is a relic of the post-World War II era, and its veto system allows those members to block the rescue of people facing slaughter for the most parochial of reasons. In light of these faults, one’s patience with the council’s approval process would understandably diminish if large-scale slaughter were underway. However, because there was no such urgency in early 2003 for Iraq, the failure to win the UN Security Council's approval, let alone the endorsement of any other multilateral body, weighs more heavily in assessing the intervenors’ claim of humanitarianism.

Of course, the UN Security Council was never asked to opine on a purely humanitarian intervention in Iraq. The principal case presented to it was built on the Iraqi government’s alleged position of and failure to account for weapons of mass destruction. Even so, approval might have ameliorated at least some of the factors that stood in the way of the invasion being genuinely humanitarian. Most significant, an invasion approved by the UN Security Council is likely to have seen more foreign troops join the predominantly US and British forces, meaning that preparation for the post-war chaos might have been better.

Failing the Humanitarian Test

In sum, the invasion of Iraq fails the test for a humanitarian intervention. The killing in Iraq at the time was not of the dire and exceptional nature that would justify military action. In addition, intervention was not the last reasonable option to stop Iraqi atrocities. It was not motivated primarily by humanitarian concerns. It was not conducted in a way that maximized compliance with international humanitarian law. It was not approved by the UN Security Council. And while at the time it was launched it was reasonable to believe that the Iraqi people would be better off, it was not designed or carried out with the needs of Iraqis foremost in mind.

Hussein certainly presided over a coercive, undemocratic, and brutal regime, and few shed tears at his overthrow. But in the interest of preserving popular support for a rescue option on which future potential victims of mass slaughter will depend, proponents of the Iraqi war should stop trying to justify it as a humanitarian intervention.