Saddam Hussein's regime has collapsed. That is cause for rejoicing. Whenever a brutal dictator falls, the heart of liberty beats faster. And Saddam was one of the more brutal.

All of us who cherish freedom and despise oppression should be glad to see Saddam toppled from the world stage.

But that does not mean I have changed my mind on this war.

I remain convinced that this was an illegal and an unjust war.

Illegal because it violated the UN Charter, and in so doing, violated Article VI of the US Constitution, which makes treaties "the supreme law of the land."

Unjust because there was no casus belli, and because not all means to peacefully resolve the conflict--which, remember, was about weapons of mass destruction--had been exhausted.

I share the resentment that much of the rest of the world feels about Bush's cowboyishness.

And I remain convinced that Bush's messianic militarism will, at some point, blow up not only in his face but in the face of the American people.

The end (toppling Saddam) does not justify the means (a criminal aggressive war).

Nor was this an antiseptic war. US and British forces killed more than 1,100 civilians, by the conservative estimate of the group Iraq Body Count (iraqbodycount.net). And they mowed down tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, many of whom were poor conscripts. The number of injured Iraqis is also in the tens of thousands, as hospitals have been overrun with patients. For their part, US and British forces lost more than 130 soldiers and suffered about 1,000 casualties.

Each of these casualties--whether American, British, or Iraqi--represents a nightmare for an entire family.

"Death, destruction, maiming, and lifetime trauma are the consequences of war," writes Cynthia Banas of Voices in the Wilderness and the Iraq Peace Team. "We have witnessed children frightened beyond their years, and have seen their mangled bodies in the hospital. War for them will never end."

Nor were the tactics of the US military honorable. The use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells, as well as the seemingly calculated killing of journalists, can never be justified.

Then there is the problem of the Iraqi occupation itself.

The raising of the American flag on the head of the statue of Saddam was just one symbol of the arrogance of the US occupation. Pictures of US soldiers sitting in the regal chairs in Saddam's palace are another.

Then there's the attitude of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who likened Iraqis learning about democracy to kids riding a bicycle with training wheels.

On top of that, the United States has a fundamental obligation to ensure that Iraqis get adequate food, clean water, and medical treatment in a hurry. If the chaos in Baghdad and Basra are any indication, merely restoring order will be no easy task, much less caring for this country of 24 million people.

The Bush Administration has shown no interest in letting the UN take a lead role in the rebuilding and reconstituting of Iraq. Instead, Wolfowitz and Company want to do it themselves. According to Human Rights Watch, they even want to be able to impose the death penalty.

And the people Wolfowitz is appointing to run the show are hardly reassuring ones.

Ahmad Chalabi