More than 200 students and community members attended a faculty panel discussion debating possible war in Iraq last night at the George Sherman Union. The event was sponsored by the University Chaplains and the Office of Residence Life.

Political Science Department chairman David Mayers, Political Science professor Betty Zisk, BU Center for Millennial Studies director Richard Landes and College of Communication Journalism Department chairman Robert Zelnick each prepared 10-minute speeches presenting different views on the situation before the floor was open to questions. BU Center for International Relations director Andrew Bacevich moderated the discussion.

America has waited too long to take action in Iraq and should remove Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime as soon as possible, according to Zelnick.

The Iraqi people ‘cannot be free without removing Saddam Hussein,’ Zelnick said. Containment, which Zelnick said the United States has relied as policy against the terrorist regime, does not work against leaders like Hussein.

‘Containment does not work against terrorist states and stateless terrorists,’ he said.

But Mayers said containment is not a policy which is designed to produce immediate results. Mayers said Hussein is a ruthless dictator and compared the Iraqi leader to Joseph Stalin. Stalin tried to get weapons of mass destruction and succeeded, he said. He threatened neighboring countries and conquered them, but American containment defeated the Soviet Union in the end, Mayers said.

The policy has only been in place against Iraq for 11 years, which Mayers said is not nearly enough time to judge its success.

‘Most of all it is a matter of faith,’ he said. ‘Containment of the Soviet Union took more than a half century.’

Landes said while containment sounds like an attractive and safe policy, the United States should be ready to take real action when real action is needed. The possible war is one such situation.

‘If we aren’t willing to be nasty sometimes, we are really in trouble,’ Landes said.

Although far more neutral than the other panelists, Landes concluded that war is advisable simply because critics refuse to suggest an alternative.

‘If you want to stop the war, find a way to deal with the problem,’ he said. ‘Don’t just stop the war.’

Speaking out against war on moral grounds, Zisk, called for ‘diplomacy, inspections and multilateral disarmament’ of Iraq. As a Quaker and Green Party member, she insisted that war is not the only option and contradicts American values and interests. She asked for patience.

‘It is not a matter of danger but of Realpolitik,’ she said. ‘We can’t take on too many enemies at once.’

Mayers agreed, adding that such a war is foolish without the backing of the international community. This war is ‘more than Washington and London can bear.’

An isolated United States and Britain perpetuating the war effort contradicts the very democracy that claim to be fighting for, he said.

Zelnick used the escalating situation in North Korea to justify going to war in Iraq as soon as possible, before the country definitely develops a large arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

‘I heard most of these reasons [not to go to war] in 1990 and 1991,’ Zelnick said, citing that many disagreed when President Bush’s father invaded Iraq. ‘North Korea is a model of what happens if a country is allowed to go unchecked.’

But to those speakers protesting the war, North Korea was instead employed as a model of why not to go.

‘North Korea demands diplomatic attention now, not later,’ Mayers said. He insisted that by ignoring the communist country, the United States will have more difficult and threatening problems down the line.

Every member of the panel agreed that Hussein needed to be removed from power. However, every member put faith in a different method of ousting the Arab leader.

Shelli Jankowski-Smith, director of the Office of the University Chaplain, organizes this event in hopes to allow the student body to ‘gather a verity of opinions.’

‘Students have a lot at risk,’ she said and ultimately, ‘students will pay the price either way.’

Heidi Francen, a junior in the COM and the College of Arts and Sciences, shared Jankowski-Smith’s sense of student responsibility to be informed.

‘[The war is the] most important thing facing America, the most important thing facing the world,’ she said.

Mike Peterson, a junior in CAS, was impressed by the articulate and informative manner of the speakers.

Although originally against war with Iraq, he said ‘my opinion swayed back and forth.’