I want to offer a counter to Matt Mellott's letter published yesterday, in which he states that CNN reports that Iraq may have stockpiled more than 600 metric tons of chemical weapons and calls for support of an attack on Saddam Hussein.

I recently read online an interview with Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq.

Ritter spent seven years in Iraq, investigating Hussein's weapons program, and feels that Iraq has no military capabilities that justify a U.S. attack.

Ritter is a card-carrying Republican who voted for Bush and a twelve-year Marine Corps veteran who believes in just war.

But Ritter states openly that the possible mid-October scheduling of an attack on Iraq has more to do with midterm congressional elections than with the security of American or Iraqi lives.

I agree that it is morally indefensible not to deal with Hussein.

But is a military attack the most effective means for his removal, especially if he is not a threat presently?

Military action would probably cause many to die, and it might undermine U.S. credibility abroad.

Can we work nonviolently for Hussein's removal?

I know what you are thinking: Nonviolence is a pipe dream and downright dangerous when dealing with the awful reality of Saddam Hussein.

But nonviolence is not nonaction.

I recently read an article [in the September-October issue of Sojourners magazine] that lays out a plan for nonviolent resistance in Iraq, which the author believes would be more practically potent, and in the end, cost fewer lives than a military strike.