Was the invasion of Iraq illegal?

[Lebeau]

I honestly cannot believe this even came up! According to a poll on excite.com:

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was illegal and that the violence in Iraq puts in doubt that national elections in that country will take place in January. British and Australian leaders maintain the legality of the war. (BBC)

See the results for yourself...

http://poll.excite.com/poll/home.jsp?cat_id=1

Furthermore, there's a fuckton of people saying it is illegal and trying to justify it! I can understand your average uneducated idiot with an opinion and internet access expressing that opinion, but the Secretary General of the U.N.? What law is he claiming we broke? Last I checked the U.N. is not a governing body capable of writing and enforcing laws.

Please help me understand this.

[ejda]

I usually try to avoid political discussions but I believe the war was illegal.
Why? Because there was no justification or reason to attack. I dont say it was bad/good or morally correct/incorrect.
I say it was illegal.

For example:
You see Mr.X stealing 1000$ dollars from your car. You cant prove it but you are caught in an attempt to *get the money back*. However that can seem as stealing, thus illegal.

Personally I dont believe human rights violations in Iraq was the reason of the atttack, just an alibi. What ever was the reason, it was not for good of Iraqi people.

[Lebeau]

"I dont say it was bad/good or morally correct/incorrect."

Actually, you just did say that. The legality of an action is not dependent upon justification or right or wrong, but merely whether it abides by law.

There's other things I could debate with you, but I won't. That's not the issue.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say a thing about justification. Legally speaking (correct me if I'm wrong), I believe we can attack Indonesia because China pissed us off. In an extremely absurd example, of course. But the debate is simply over the legality.

Now, if the President orders a military strike and Congress says "Hell no, call them back." And the President says, "Ladies and gentlemen of Congress, screw you, I'm attacking anyway." Then yeah, that'd be illegal. And technically, I can refuse to go to war, because I am required to follow the lawful orders of my superiors. If the President defies Congress, then I can say no. If he defies the U.N., who the hell cares? They don't write our laws and they don't enforce them.

Once again, I'm not saying the war was right or wrong. I'm not talking ethics. I'm talking law. And the only legal right the U.N. holds over us is that which we have willingly signed in the form of a treaty. And I believe we are also within our rights to break treaties... that I'm NOT sure of.

Of course, there's a lot of things we can legally do that'll piss everybody off and may even result in a U.N. led attack on us if we're totally stupid. Legal don't mean right and it don't mean smart. It means we said we could.

You say illegal, but you mean wrong. In that, you're entitled to your opinion. But whether it was illegal is not subject to opinion, but fact.

[ejda]

Now I get your point. But as far as I know countries in UN cannot attack each other without any justifications.
So IMO US cannot attack Indonesia just to test new war strategies. Maybe someone who knows more can enlight us.

[Aristotle]

Ejda, it sounds like you don't follow international news that much so I will try to explain.

Legal Reason #1:

In 1991, Iraq illegally invaded and conquered Kuwait.

The US lead a coalition of nations to expell Iraq from Kuwait.

The US did so, and eventually signed a cease fire agreement with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

That cease fire had a variety of terms. Some of them included a ban on missiles that could travel beyond a certain range, a ban on developing any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon technologies, etc. No fly zones were also created. The US was given authorization to patrol these no-fly zones. Obviously, Iraq agreed not to impede the US from patrolling these no-fly zones.

The UN Inspectors found numerous violations of these terms including missiles that could travel much further than the legal maximum, ricin, anthrax, and other chemical weapons (though not in the quantities that US, Russian, and British intelligence thought would be found).

Furthermore, for many years, Iraq has shot at US planes patrolling the no-fly zones.

Thus, under international law, the US had the legal right to attack Iraq since Iraq violated the terms of the 1991 cease fire. In other words, this war could legally be termed the continuation of the 1991 attack.

Legal Reason #2:

Under international law, any nation has the right to protect itself from a potential aggressor. This includes pre-emptive action.

The US believed (and had an enormous amount of evidence from many countries to support the belief) that Iraq possessed and was developing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. The US also believed (and again had a lot of evidence to support) that Iraq was supporting international terrorism.

Illegal chemical weapons were indeed found in Iraq after the invasion (though not in enormous quantities).

Mountains of evidence was found that Iraq was indeed a safe haven for international and Al Quaeda terrorists. Even the 9/11 commission found plentiful evidence of a connection between Iraq and Al Quaeda (though they did not find a connection between Iraq and 9/11 specifically).

So there you have it. Those are two completely legitimate reasons to attack another country. Both of which are legal under international law.

[Graeblyn]

Originally posted by Aristotle
So there you have it. Those are two completely legitimate reasons to attack another country. Both of which are legal under international law.

All of which begs the question:

Why has the Secretary General of the U.N. declared the U.S. to be acting illegally?

I should state that I disagreed vehemently with the decision for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and I do believe that Bush has made a mess of things there. However, the U.N., in declaring this act illegal, has once again shown itself to be both inept and irrelevent.

Firstly, even if Kofi were the appropriate authority to make such a statement (he isn't, by the way. The Secretary General does not make findings on International Law), and even if he were not incorrect in the first place, his opinion couldn't have less impact on the actual behavior of the U.S. Most Americans probably aren't even aware he said anything

Secondly, even if the U.S. were violating International Law, the Secretary General has only resulted in betraying a scary fact... It doesn't matter. The more of a fuss world leaders make, and the more such histrionics don't at all impede the actions of the U.S., the more free the U.S. will feel to do as it wants, and the less respect our citizens and government will have for world leaders and international agencies (if it is even possible for the U.S. to care less then it does now).

If leaders like the secretary general wish to have any influence in the foreign policies of the U.S., they will have to acquire at least a modicum of common sense, and be much more realistic about the relative power of the rest of the world to that of the U.S.

[ejda]

I follow international news as much as I care but to me all the *famous* countries (countries we regularly hear about in news) are corrupt. So based on experience, I am not very interested in hearing international news since they tend to made me angry.

Anyway, about legal reason 1, those are not considered to be legitimate reasons for attack, as UN never agreed with an invasion, unlike the Gulf War. To give an example both Iraq-Kuwait and Iran-Iraq wars were claimed on similar reasons.

Furthermore, for many years, Iraq has shot at US planes patrolling the no-fly zones.

For example Iraq always claimed that those shots were fired at planes that had swayed out of no-fly zone. I am not saying Iraqi government was right with its claim. I am saying these kinds of conflicts, which both sides accuse each other, are natural and never a legitimate reason.

The second reason has never played a role in justifying the attack. Anyways, I am bored, just see this survey.
To summarize, IMO US used a pile of half baked and incomplete justifications to attack.
The biggest truth here is:

Originally posted by Graeblyn

... the relative power of the rest of the world to that of the U.S.

Finally, I am not saying reasons 1 and 2 are false, or misleading or whatever. I am saying they are not a justification to *attack* Iraq. They are too weak to for a reason to attack.

[Aristotle]

Ejda, I am not sure you read my post.

Iraq violated the 1991 Cease Fire in numerous different ways. Thus, our attack was a resumation of the 1991 Iraq Gulf War that was DEFINITELY legal.

Furthermore, as I already mentioned, it has always been legal under international law to strike pre-emptively if you believe a country poses a threat to their security. Since chemical weapons WERE found (ricin and anthrax) and since countless examples of Saddam being connected with international terrorism were found, the legal argument is easy to make.

Questions regarding whether or not it was a GOOD idea, or the RIGHT idea, or a well carried out idea are completely different.

Only an absolute fool would try to argue it was illegal.

Furthermore, the answer to the question as to why Kofi Anan is saying this is simple:

He's scared shitless about the fact that the Iraqi Oil For Food Program scandal is about to be completely exposed.

The UN, France, Germany, and Russia were engaging in complete fraud and embezzlement. This scandal could be absolutely disastrous for the United Nations, as well as the credibility of France, Germany, and Russia.

[Riek]

As an aside, who actually gives a rats left testicle what the UN decrees.

Since 1976, the UN have stated that Indonesia does not have sovereignty over East Timor, yet despite the hundreds of thousands of lives lost there, they have done squat.

So they declare another invasion illegal, big deal. All they might do now is allow another country onto the security council that have atrocious human rights violations. /sarcasm

[Frobozz]

Under the US Constitution it was perfectly legal. The President is Commander-in-Chief of our military forces, he can use them to invade, attack, etc at his will. That's a power he gets from the Constitution.

Under the UN treaty, really? Who cares. The UN is an incredibly corrupt group.