Hanspeter Born: “Bush has little choice”

Journalist Hanspeter Born says the Iraq war would be justified. Weltwoche

Hanspeter Born is a journalist for the "Weltwoche" magazine. He is also a former Washington correspondent for Swiss radio DRS.

swissinfo: Is there a valid reason for going to war?

For me, there are very good political, legal and moral grounds.

[UN Security Council] resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 actually give the Americans the [legal] right to attack.

Morally, Saddam Hussein has two wars on his conscience that have killed at least two million people. He has used poison gas and he brutally suppresses his own people. It is time to put an end to his tyranny.

And politically, Bush has little choice: he cannot allow a situation where terrorist groups obtain weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein.

swissinfo: Has the United Nations lost its credibility?

Did the UN ever have credibility as an organ of security and peace? Since the Second World War, the UN has endorsed three wars. Another 250 wars have occurred without the UN, among them the conflicts in Sierra Leone and Kosovo.

[However] I believe the UN will regain its credibility in the future. The mess left behind by the split in the UN Security Council will presumably lead to new thinking.

swissinfo-interview: Christian Raaflaub (translation: Jacob Greber)