Students crowded into Hutchins Hall last night to hear University students Amer Zahr and Justin Shubow debate the moral justifications of military intervention in Iraq.

Zahr, a Law School student, argued that the Bush administration's contention that Saddam must be deposed in order to create a democratic government in Iraq is hypocritical. "Saddam is a despot, but if we are going to attack despots, we would have to also attack Saudi Arabia and Israel too."

Zahr maintained that Iraq has never directly attacked the United States or Americans. To the contrary, Zahr said, Saddam's government was long favored by American foreign policy.

"Saddam was a sweetheart of America. In fact, two months before the Gulf War, he was visited by a Senate delegation led by former presidential candidate Bob Dole to reassure him of continued American support," he said.

Zahr contended that the United States has a moral obligation to adhere to the charter of the United Nations, an organization that it helped create. According to this charter, Zahr said, there are only two reasons that a nation can legally go to war with another: for self-defense with the explicit permission from the U.N. Security Council. Since the United States has neither, Zahr asserted that war could not be legally justified.

Zahr argued that a more effective way to undermine Saddam's power would be to repeal the economic sanctions which have devastated the nation's once thriving middle class-the same middle class that had served as a check on Saddam's authority.

Shubow, a Rackham student, countered that many students who oppose the war do so because of a visceral dislike of President Bush and do not take time to thoroughly examine the issue.

While acknowledging that Bush has done a terrible job of justifying the war, Shubow nonetheless maintained that war was justified.

"This is a moral crisis of an exceptionally grave character - so grave that there is no rival since World War II."

Shubow said Saddam was responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands more.More importantly, Shubow said, Saddam wishes to develop nuclear weapons. The United States cannot allow him to do so because it would then be nearly impossible to prevent him from realizing one of his stated aims - redrawing the map of the Middle East, Shubow said.

He said there are three available means of confronting Saddam - containment, deterrence and invasion. He argued that neither containment nor deterrence has worked during the past 12 years.

When asked his opinion of military intervention, LSA senior Paul Gabrail, an Iraqi American with many relatives still living in Iraq, defended the war.

"Yes, there will be casualties among Iraqis, but it is much better to lose people now than to let a man stay in power who has already killed a million and a half of his own people," Gabrail said.

Law School student Ryan Houseal said he was reluctant to support any unilateral American intervention, no matter how justified. "The United States has a long history of invading sovereign states and installing autocrats that are answerable primarily to the American government," he said. "What will stop them from taking similar actions wherever they find the actions of a government objectionable?"