The Final Word on the Illegality of Bush's War Against Iraq

There have been many debates raging here at Xomba over the past few days, but the end is here because I have the final word on the illegality of Bush's War in Iraq. Publius' valiant attempt to paint Bush's deception of the UN as something just and right aside, the business of sanctioning Iraq and enforcing those sanctions has always been within the purview of the United Nations Security Council. As such, it wouldn't matter if the US Congress passed a resolution saying Iraq was made of cheese and we must send mice over there to eat it--there wasn't and still isn't any legal grounds (legal in the International sense of the word) for Bush's invasion, despite the best efforts of Bush's PR team and his media lapdogs.

I will quote the germane parts of two different articles, which will directly and forever address the WHY of Bush's illegality. Even though I've already posted these as comments after another article that Publius posted, I feel that the very subject of the Iraq War and its questionable legality is highly contentionous and, as such, it warrants its own Xombyte. The stakes have been too high for too long and the world deserves to know the Truth before it is forever lost down the memory hole and from our collective conscience.

Overview of the PR Campaign to Sell the War in Iraq

This contains the following subjects:

CASTING IRAQ AS A THREAT
LINKING PREEMPTION WITH IRAQ
PREEMPTION DROPPED, BUT NO ONE NOTICES
LEADING UP TO SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1441
MISINTERPRETATION OF 1441
PERMISSION SLIP VS. GLOBAL TEST
WAR ALREADY AUTHORIZED TWELVE YEARS AGO?
FAILING TO CHALLENGE THE LEGALITY OF THE IRAQ WAR
COUNTDOWN TO WAR AND NO LOOKING BACK
COUNTDOWN TO WAR IN THEIR OWN WORDS

From "Misinterpretation of 1441":
On November 8th, UNSC resolution 1441 was passed and the Administration failed to get the all of their strict conditions and desired tripwires for war, but they got enough of what they wanted in the resolution to begin using the UN weapons inspection process as the trigger for war.

The desire for other countries to remove all of the automatic triggers for war merited a specific reassurance from the United States UN Ambassador, John Negroponte. Negroponte's following statement to the diplomats gives more context as to why 1441 was passed with a unanimous vote. He said, "As we have said on numerous occasions to Council members, this Resolution contains no 'hidden triggers' and no 'automaticity' with respect to the use of force [i.e. 1441 has no automatic authorization for the US to go to war]."

But in the same breath he also said, "this resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq."

President Bush then gave a speech at the White House saying, "The United States has agreed to discuss any material breach with the Security Council, but without jeopardizing our freedom of action to defend our country."

This self-defense argument is a red herring, because it was designed to scare the American public and confuse the American media. After the Congress passed the war resolution, the Bush Administration never attempted to argue a case of self-defense to the UN. The US always claimed that it did not need a 2nd UN resolution to go to war because they already had enough authorization to attack Iraq from Security Council resolutions passed from over a decade ago.

...Negroponte's on-the-record promises carried a lot of weight with France and other UNSC members, but the mainstream media failed to include this crucial context in their coverage from November until the brink of war when the Council was debating these issues. The US media collectively perceived that the United States now had the green light for military action and the "Countdown to War" was kicked into overdrive after November 8th.

From "War Already Authorized Twelve Years Ago?":
"As already alluded to above, a lot of insight can be gained as to what happened between November 8th and March 19th when looking from the perspective of the US legal argument laid out in the March 17th talking points and in Negroponte's March 20th letter to the UN.

The Bush Administration argued that "Under UN Resolutions 678 and 687 - both still in effect - we are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction."

In other words, the US claims to know that Iraq possesses WMD and that they have not disarmed. This combined with two resolutions passed 12 and 11 years ago for a different reason now somehow allows a carte blanche authority for the US to conduct a wholesale invasion of Iraq to overthrow the government.

While most International Lawyers would characterize this legal argument as being "unpersuasive," it did not matter because the Bush Administration was counting on their legal theory being too complex and confusing for anyone who mattered to seriously dig into it. Unfortunately, the Administration was correct and no mainstream journalist ever really investigated their claims of authority until a few weeks before the war began."

From reading and studying the information presented in this link, it is clear that Bush was selling two different versions of the necessity for war: one to the American public and one to the International community. It is important to note that the one that he sold internationally didn't include any language about "self-defense" and instead tried to claim that the U.S. was merely trying to enforce the sanctions already in place. To the American public, he sold the invasion as "Self-Defense" by furthering his claims that Iraq had WMD's (that he was never able to find) and had links to terrorist organizations (that he never bothered to prove).

By examining the evidence taken from 2002-03 and beyond, we can clearly see that what Publius holds as legitimacy from the United Nations for Bush's War in Iraq is a smokescreen for Bush's real intentions and merely part of a bigger PR Campaign to sell the war.

For further legal evidence on the illegality of Bush's War in Iraq, a white paper was written by Sean D. Young of George Washington University--Law School. The paper appeared in Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 92, No. 4, 2004. It reinforces what the author of the PR article wrote and gives appropriate legal (and other evidentiary) citations in International law, where appropriate. It is not available in HTML, but it can be viewed and/or downloaded as a PDF.

Here is the link to the white paper's abstract and to the download locations:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=432561

For a direct rebuttal to Publius' claim that "all subsequent resolutions" means resolutions in perpetuity, I quote:

"The structure of Resolution 678 suggests that the resolution is focused on Iraqi compliance with the Security Council’s resolutions adopted after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait but before the date of Resolution 678 itself, which was November 29, 1990. The phrase “all subsequent relevant resolutions” in paragraph one appears to be a reference back to the ten resolutions specified in the preamble.¹⁸

Further, the authorization in paragraph two only becomes effective if by January 16 Iraq fails to comply with such resolutions. In other words, had Iraq complied with the obligations set forth under those ten resolutions—which related to Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait, return of Kuwaiti nationals and property, and other matters, but which did not relate to weapons of mass destruction—on or before January 15, 1991, then the authorization contained in paragraph two would not be effective. Given that Iraq could not possibly comply by January 16 with resolutions that did not exist as of that date, the only reasonable interpretation of the language is that “all subsequent resolutions” refers to the ten resolutions existing at the time Resolution 678 was adopted, and not resolutions thereafter.¹⁹

Indeed, taken at face value, the U.S. interpretation presumably would authorize the use of force in perpetuity to uphold any Security Council resolution enacted under Chapter VII relating to Iraq, absent a further Security Council resolution terminating the authorization contained in Resolution 678. Such an interpretation is inconsistent with the carefulness with which the Security Council acted in authorizing the use of force in Resolution 678, whereby
Iraq was provided “one final opportunity” to take specific actions that would forestall the resort to force. As such, the interpretation is not tenable."