Technically speaking, was the Iraq War illegal, according to US and

international laws?

I seem to recall reading something about the only time the Constitution allows for military use is when we have been attacked, or are in imminent danger of being attacked, or to follow a UN resolution (which basically says war if you are attacked or about to be attacked).

From a strictly legal sense, was the Iraq War justified? Were there any UN resolutions (1441?) justifying Bush's invasion?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.

He said the decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally.

To wit, Chapter 1, Article 2, Items 3 & 4 specifically:

3 All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4 All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Resolution 1441 specifically did NOT authorize military action. It needed to go back for a second vote.

Our own Constitution says in Article VI:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Which means that treaties ratified by Congress have the full force of US law, including the UN Charter.

So Bush violated both when invading Iraq.

Furthermore, the invasion of Iraq was also pretty clearly a 'war of aggression' as defined during the Nuremberg Tribunal.

authorizing force will tell you. There were many conditions to be met before force was considered. Allowing the UN inspection team ample time to finish the job and write their report was one.

Bush kicked the inspectors out of Iraq and started bombing 24 hours later, against the letter of the document Congress passed.

The war is illegal. Bush is a war criminal.

Don't expect to see justice in our lifetimes.

i'm pretty sure congress was supposed to declare that.

i don't even know what they are technically calling it. a 'police action'?

Condider re-reading the Declaration of Independence and you'll see how it's against all we ever stood for.

To say nothing of the war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions.

A total aboomination really.

Didn't God tell Bush to go to war?

It's illegal but nothing will ever be done about it.

an invasion would not be legal under international law.

Elizabeth Wilmhurst, a Foreign Office legal adviser, resigned in protest at the sudden about face of UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in respect of the legality of the war. According to her letter of resignation, the Foreign Office legal team had provided the advice that resolution 1441 was not sufficient to establish the legality of further military action in Iraq, and the Attorney General agreed with this, until suddenly changing his views immediately prior to the war.

In a paragraph censored by the UK government when her letter was released under the UK FOIA, she said:


(See Channel 4's story on her resignation letter at http://www.channel4.com/news/2005/03/week_4/23_letter.html ).

Even the final advice of Lord Goldsmith, though it hesitantly expressed the view that "a reasonable case" for the legality of the war could be made, was equivocal in the extreme. It identifies three possible bases which could provide a legal framework for the use of force:

1) self defence
2) averting humanitarian catastrophe
3) authorisation by the UN Security Council.

Option 1, he dismissed with the words: "In my opinion, there must be some degree of imminence. I am aware that the USA has been arguing for recognition of a broad doctrine of a right to use force to pre-empt danger in the future (...) this is not a doctrine which, in my opinion, exists or is recognised in international law".

Strike one.

Option 2 fell to the judgement that "I know of no reason why [avverting humanitarian catastrophe] would be an appropriate basis for action in present circumstances.

Strike two.

So the task of Goldsmith's argument lies in showing that UN SC resolution 1441 provides authorisation for the use of force. The claim that it does rests on two further claims: that the revival of force authorized by previous UN resolutions, where that authorization had been suspended by a further resolution, without requiring a further explicit resolution to "un-suspend" the authorization, is a sound principle; and that given the soundness of the principle, the text of UN SCR 1441 was sufficient to warrent such a revival.

Goldsmith then spends about 9 closely argued pages making the tenuous case that both these further claims hold water (and it is here, I imagine, where his views diverged with the legal advice given to him by the Foreign Office, and with his previous views that Wilmhurst refers to.) He acknowledges that both the "revival principle" and the sufficiency of 1441 are highly contestable, and doesn't go much further than stating that a "reasonable case" can be made on these grounds. As I understand it, this is lawyers' jargon meaning that the argument might get you into court, but in no way guarantees a win.

I won't examine his arguments in detail, but it's worth quoting a paragraph towards the end of his advice:



So, even given his admittedly dodgy strategy of reliance on the "revival principle" and some fairly bogus"nuanced" interpretations of the details of the language of 1441, the entire legal structure falls down if it can't be shown that Iraq has failed to take its "final opportunity". In fact, all the evidence shows that Iraq was doing it's darndest to co-operate with the UN inspectors in the run-up to the invasion, making the invasion illegal even by the lights of the official legal advice given to Blair.

The full text of the advice is available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1472115,00.html as a PDF file linked just under the headline of that story.

instead of allowing the UN inspectors to do their jobs, Bush basically kicked them out. If Saddam made overtures to the UN and attempted to placate this administration, then it is war crimes we have committed against the Iraqi people. This administration wanted a foot hold into Iraq and nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to stop them. The US media is complicit in this transgression. Sometimes, I wonder that it is the knowledge that Saddam had no WMDs that it was attacked. Since, we had an embargo on Iraq and basically weakened its infrastructure, then it seems like we attacked a rather defenseless country. Revolution comes from within for change, not from outside.