The Language of Argument

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C o m b i n a t i o n s : A n E x a m p l e

standard. In this case, as in many others, it is not enough just to be able to

identify the argument and to understand its purpose. You also need to deter-

mine how strong it is.

For such reasons, we all need to understand arguments and to be able to

evaluate them. This need arises not only in law but also in life, such as when

we decide which candidate to vote for, what course to take, whether to be-

lieve that your spouse is cheating on you, and so on. The goal of this book is

to teach the skills needed for understanding and assessing arguments about

important issues like these.

In his famous testimony to the United Nations Security Council on

February 5, 2003, which was forty-two days before U.S. troops entered

Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave several arguments for his main

conclusion that Saddam Hussein was at that time still trying to obtain fissile

material for a nuclear weapons program. His arguments mix justification

with explanation. For each of his arguments, determine whether it is a

justification or an explanation. How does each argument work? How strong

is it? How would you respond if you disagreed? How would you defend

that part against criticisms? It will, of course, be difficult to answer these

questions before studying the rest of this book. However, it is worthwhile

to reflect on how much you already understand at the start. It is also useful

to have some concrete examples to keep in mind as you study arguments in

more depth.

Let me turn now to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam

Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program. On the contrary,

we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire

nuclear weapons.

To fully appreciate the challenge that we face today, remember that in

1991 the inspectors searched Iraq’s primary nuclear weapons facilities for the

first time, and they found nothing to conclude that Iraq had a nuclear weap-

ons program. But, based on defector information, in May of 1991, Saddam

Hussein’s lie was exposed. In truth, Saddam Hussein had a massive clandes-

tine nuclear weapons program that covered several different techniques to

enrich uranium, including electromagnetic isotope separation, gas centrifuge

and gas diffusion.

We estimate that this illicit program cost the Iraqis several billion dollars.

Nonetheless, Iraq continued to tell the IAEA that it had no nuclear weapons

program. If Saddam had not been stopped, Iraq could have produced a nu-

clear bomb by 1993, years earlier than most worst case assessments that had

been made before the war.

In 1995, as a result of another defector, we find out that, after his invasion

of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein had initiated a crash program to build a crude

Discussion Question

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