"If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long," President Bush told a West Point audience in 2002, months before the Iraq invasion. With those words, President Bush continued to lay the ground work for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

		"LESS SAFE, LESS FREE" By David Cole and Jules Lobel The New Press ($26.95)

The argument for preventive war is that a nation should be the aggressor before the other side can pose an imminent threat. But David Cole and Jules Lobel, law professors at Georgetown and the University of Pittsburgh, respectively, argue eloquently and forcefully that preventive war makes flawed foreign policy.

Preventive war excludes the possibility that something else -- "soft" force, regime change, diplomacy -- may dissipate a threat before war is needed.

The Bush administration did not invent the preventive war doctrine. It dates to the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens in 431 B.C. Then, Sparta attacked its rival, even though an Athenian attack was far from imminent. War was waged for 30 years.

Preventive war isn't a universal failure, of course. There is the occasional success, however, Cole and Lobel cite the Iraq war as the most recent example of a preventive war gone awry.

Advocates of the preventive paradigm pushed to attack Saddam Hussein based on a vague future threat. The argument was "not that Hussein had attacked us, or even that he would attack us, but that he might provide dangerous weapons at some time in the future to those who would."

In hindsight, without weapons of mass destruction and no actual al-Qaeda link, the case for war seems so much weaker.

Terming the war a "security disaster," the authors claim that we are now less safe from terrorists. They write that the Iraq invasion "has diverted billions of dollars and massive resources from pursuing al-Qaeda and other threats, inspired many to become terrorists, provided an invaluable training ground for those who do become terrorists, bogged down the U.S. military, and dramatically increased anti-American sentiment around the world." More than 3,000 American soldiers have died in the war.

Preventive actions don't just make us less safe from terror, but they leave us less free at home. The strategy paints in broad strokes, using guilt by association and ethnic profiling to target suspected future wrongdoers.

The authors demand added scrutiny for coercive intelligence-gathering practices. Aside from possible international human rights abuses at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and detention centers in Eastern Europe, coercive practices pose a grave challenge within the rule of law.

Evidence obtained through practices such as torture, stress positions and waterboarding cannot be used in court. Therefore, many detainees will never be held accountable for their crimes.

As an example, the authors point to Mohammed al-Khatani, the alleged 20th Sept. 11 hijacker. He is locked up but has yet to be charged with a crime.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently determined that the president can't hold detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo without hearings. And because so much of the evidence was speculative or obtained by less-than-lawful means, those who are detained -- both terrorists and innocents -- are less likely to ever be charged or convicted. Cole and Lobel note that hundreds of detainees have already been released.

The Bush administration argues that preventive detentions are necessary, but Cole and Lobel point to the British, who have thwarted terror plots using traditional police methods of surveillance and interrogation. Because the plots were also more developed, convictions are also much easier to obtain.

In closing, the authors offer alternative ideas to the preventive strategy. Many, such as eliminating torture, using the rule of law as an asset when utilizing coercive force and addressing the root causes of terror, are well-known. But after Cole and Lobel make their case, these alternatives look especially compelling.