Rupert Cornwell: A justifiable tool in the war against terrorism

For the Bush administration, the assassination of Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi is not only a "very successful tactical operation", in the words yesterday of Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defence. It is also a correct and morally justifiable tool in the war against terrorism.

For President George Bush and his advisers, this conflict is a shadowy struggle fought across the world, where the adversary does not fight by the normal rules. But his forces are still combatants, and all means of military action are justified against them, including assassination.

The philosophy was set out by Mr Bush in his speech at West Point in June, arguing for "pre-emptive action" against the new enemy.

But even setting that doctrine aside, American officials say the legal basis for assassinations of suspected terrorists is ample. First, they claim that Article 2, Section 2, of the US Constitution implicitly sanctions the right of a president, as commander-in-chief, to order lethal force against individuals in time of war.

Last September Congress also specifically authorised Mr Bush to use "all necessary force" to deal with people involved with the 11 September attacks.

Harethi, who is held to have been a planner of the October 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole in which 17 American sailors were killed, qualifies under this definition. He is said have been among the top 15 leaders of al-Qa'ida.

Finally, late last year, Mr Bush signed on an intelligence finding, directing the CIA to use "lethal covert operations" to remove Osama bin Laden and his high command.

From the outset Mr Bush said Bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive". Taking him prisoner and putting him on trial would obviously be best. War does not always work so conveniently.

Until President Ford's 1976 executive order which banned the CIA and other government employees from carrying out political assassinations, the practice was not uncommon – ask Fidel Castro. It was outlawed partly as a result of the moral revulsion sparked by the Watergate affair – but partly because it was often botched. Today, as the Harethi killing shows, technology provides ever more reliable tools.

Undoubtedly the US has tried to assassinate Saddam Hussein, either directly or by putting together a plot to kill him. Assassination falls into a grey area, where the public does not want a war, but is aware that conventional diplomacy fails.

Suppose President Saddam defies UN weapons inspectors again, and invites upon himself the threatened "serious consequences". Would it not be better for those consequences to be a single hit against a single person, than a war to topple him in which thousands of Iraqi civilians would die?