Topic: Iraq
Iraq - Our war was legal (Bush)
I knew that (Blair)
It wasn't legal at all (Richard Perle of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld)
Oops!
What's this all about? Our point man, our hawk of hawks, Richard Perle, Wednesday night at an event organized by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, discussing the invasion and take-over of Iraq said this: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing." French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".
Perle of course had argued loudly for the toppling of the Saddam Hussein since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
The problem? George Bush and his guys had consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq - and that was also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defense permitted by international law. The main argument of the United States has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the right of each state to self-defense, including pre-emptive self-defense. On the night bombing began, in March, Bush flat out quoted America's "sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad.
Now our point man says, well, not exactly. This is a big "oops."
"They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, a spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high court challenge to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law suits them that they want to use it."
Well, the British folks never advanced the suggestion that they were entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in relation to Iraq. Now what?
Talk about insulting your hosts!
You might recall Richard Perle resigned his chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board earlier this year but remained a member of the advisory board. I guess he's a bit of a loose cannon.
But most folks agree the most American voters don't give a rap. Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University on the matter: "I suspect a majority of the American public would have supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did, had the administration said that all along."
We've pulled out of a lot of treaties, like Kyoto and the International Tribunal thing, and we think everyone should agree to fair trade laws - except we reserve the right to put tariffs on steel even if the WTO says that's a treaty violation, and even if yesterday we put big tariffs on finished goods from China. International rules? International laws? Others should follow them.
Read all about this here: War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal ... Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger - The Guardian (UK) - Thursday November 20, 2003
Posted by Alan at 16:28 PST
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Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2003 14:52 PST
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