Hesiod is looking at the legal basis of the US decision to invade Iraq.
The government's lawyers are very much aware that a "pre-emptive" attack on another sovereign nation is justified under the international laws that also are binding in American law only if an attack is "imminent."
This is not some quibbling over marketing terms. The Bush Administration's National Security Policy talks about pre-emptive war rather than "preventive" war, because in international law, pre-emptive war is legal against an "imminent" threat. "Preventive" war, on the other hand, is an illegal attack, an "aggressive" are in terms of the Nuremburg Tribunal language.
However tenuous the Bush Administration's commitment to obeying international law may be, at least not everyone who works for the US government has forgotten it.
See also:
War and Atrocities
Frum/Perle Short Version
The Amazing Mr. Perle
That Trial
Sometimes a Few Words Say It All
US Troops in Syria?
Will the Iran-Contra Crowd Ever Go Away?
Was Iraq an "Imminent" Threat?
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and the Doctrine of Preventive War
Iraq War: Welcome to the West Bank
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