The Invasion of Iraq
Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:43 pm
How Many of Those Calling for Putin’s Arrest were Complicit in the Illegal Invasion of Iraq?
by George Monbiot
March 20, 2023
Extract:
by George Monbiot
March 20, 2023
Extract:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ell-russiaNo one can credibly deny that the invasion of Iraq met the Nuremberg definition. The Chilcot inquiry, whose terms were set by Brown when he was prime minister, was forbidden to pronounce on the legality of the war. But it concluded that “the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.” In other words, it failed to meet the UN charter’s criteria for legal warfare. The former law lord, Lord Steyn, came to the same conclusion: “In the absence of a second UN resolution authorising invasion, it was illegal”. The former lord chief justice, Lord Bingham, called the Iraq war “a serious violation of international law”. A Dutch inquiry, led by a former supreme court judge, found that the invasion had “no sound mandate in international law.
The attackers went out of their way to eliminate peaceful alternatives. Saddam Hussein desperately sought to negotiate, eventually offering everything the US and UK governments said they wanted, but they slapped his hand away, then lied to us about it. When the UN sought diplomatic solutions, US officials went into what they called “thwart mode”, sabotaging negotiations.
When the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, José Bustani, offered to resolve the impasse over weapons inspections in Iraq, the US government illegally ousted him. The first government to support his sacking was the United Kingdom’s.
The government in which Brown was chancellor was repeatedly warned that its planned invasion would be illegal.