The marshlands of southern Mesopotamia. The regime of Saddam Hussein has destroyed 90 percent of this unique ecosystem. (Courtesy of the AMAR Charitable Trust Foundation)

Saddam Hussein's Iraq represents a threat to the peace and security of the world because it is the crossroads where weapons of mass destruction, state support for terrorism, international aggression, and a sustained assault on human rights converge in a single place, under a single tyrant. In his address to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, President George W. Bush said:

The history, the logic, and the facts lead to only one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.

The international community has now taken an important step to meet the threat that Iraq poses by rising up and speaking in a single voice through the United Nations to demand disclosure and destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction — immediately and unconditionally. Furthermore, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 — adopted on November 8, 2002, by a unanimous vote of 15-0 — confirms that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations. It also states that any additional breaches will result in serious consequences. Following the Security Council's action, President Bush said:

The resolution approved today presents the Iraqi regime with a test — a final test. Iraq must now, without delay or negotiations, fully disarm, welcome full inspections, and fundamentally change the approach it has taken for more than a decade.

Since his defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein has demonstrated his contempt for the international community by flouting repeated U.N. demands to eliminate his chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. U.N. demands that Baghdad cease persecution of its own people, release foreign prisoners, return stolen property, and end its illegal exploitation of the Oil-for-Food Program have also been ignored.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq is a human rights catastrophe, where thousands of citizens are routinely subject to arbitrary arrest, torture, and execution. Freedom of speech, religious practice, political association, privacy, and due process under law — all are nonexistent.

The regime has attacked and exploited religious communities in Iraq as ruthlessly as it has any other group that opposes its rule or attempts to assert a measure of independence. Baghdad has conducted a brutal campaign of protracted arbitrary arrest and summary execution against the religious leaders and followers of the majority Shi'a Muslim population.

Iraq's military and security services have been used to ethnically cleanse whole areas of Iraq, displacing an estimated 1 million people throughout the country, brutally persecuting minorities and those perceived as dissidents. In these attacks, Iraqi forces increasingly employed chemical weapons against unarmed Iraqi civilians.

Saddam Hussein has relentlessly pursued the acquisition of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons — despite the efforts of international inspectors and comprehensive sanctions, and at the expense and continued suffering of the Iraqi people.

Iraq remains a state sponsor of terrorism and has continued its long-standing policy of providing political support and sanctuary for a variety of terrorist organizations.

The Iraqi regime has also long conducted an active program of terrorist training and organization — much of it based around an area known as Salman Pak. Moreover, strong evidence suggests that al Qaeda terrorists escaping from Afghanistan have found refuge inside Iraq.

Iraqi Kurdish men walk in the mass graveyard and memorial in Halabja City. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

Corruption is endemic in Iraq, a country that functions in many ways as a wholly owned subsidiary of Saddam Hussein and his family. Oil smuggling, hidden surcharges on oil sales, and other manipulations of the U.N.-sanctioned Oil-for-Food Program are the principal sources of Saddam's illicit revenues. All of these illicit funds go to his family and supporters — not to improve the welfare of the Iraqi people.

After taking full power in 1979, Saddam Hussein launched his country into two disastrous conflicts — the Iran-Iraq War and the invasion of Kuwait. Each brought nothing but hardship, death, defeat, and national humiliation to the Iraqi people.

The United States wishes to see a future Iraq that is democratic, unified, and at peace with its neighbors, and that rises to become a respected member of the international community.

A new government in Iraq — without Saddam and his repressive circle of family, clans, and supporters — would give the international community an opportunity to work together to heal the wounds of the past decade and help Iraqi citizens rebuild their social, political, and economic lives. The Iraqi people deserve no less.