ABSTRACT
According to US officials, ensuring the safety of the United States and its allies from the use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq would require the dismantling of the very regime that called for the development and use of those weapons in the first place. With regime change as the stated policy goal of war in Iraq, targeting regime leaders has once again become a moral, legal, and practical debate worthy of serious consideration. The only alternative to such difficult determinations within international law is a general renunciation of killing regime leaders as part of an act of self-defense during a lawful armed conflict or a general reliance upon more aggressive uses of force, like a full-scale war. Policymakers bear the burden of weighing the practical, ethical and legal advantages and disadvantages, among other implications, of all possible options, in light of the particular goal.
