The controversial legality of the Iraq War explained

Like most people, you probably think the legal reason for going to war in Iraq was because, according to US intelligence, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This was not the reason.

It’s a sad reflection of the media coverage at the time that very few people actually know the legal basis for the Iraq War.

This is in part due to the media’s support for a war that would lift ratings. But mostly it was due to the embarrassingly weak reasoning on which the legality was based.

International Law for War

Like any government action, the use of force is controlled by law. This law is laid out in the United Nations core document, the UN Charter.

There are only two situations when the use of force, or war, is legal:

1) Self-Defence – when a country attacks you, you are permitted to use force in self-defence (article 51 of the UN Charter).

2) A UN Security Council resolution – when the UN Security Council passes a legally binding ‘resolution’ allowing the use of force (article 42 of the UN Charter).

Leading up to the war...

In 2002, President Bush and the US government began building a case for war claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This was to get emotional backing from the public and with emotions running high after September 11, it was easy to achieve.

At this time the media should have been a voice of level headedness. However with vested interests in increased ad revenue from the coverage and staying onside with the government, not to mention a fear of seeming unpatriotic, the mainstream media barely mentioned the legality of the war.

Since then, the UN Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan, has stated in an interview with BBC “from our point of view and from the Charter point of view [the war] was illegal.”

The legal reason for the Iraq War

Back in 1989 Iraq invaded Kuwait, the small gulf nation to the south. The world condemned this and the UN Security Council passed resolution 678 that allowed the use of force, starting the Gulf War.

The end of the war in 1991 resulted in a cease-fire and another resolution, 687.

687 stated that Iraq must let UN weapons inspectors roam freely throughout the country to ensure no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were developed.

If such conditions were not met, the cease-fire would be broken and the rules of resolution 678, allowing the use of force, would be reinstated.

During the next 10 years, the Iraqi government behaved erratically with the inspectors, sometimes allowing them free reign, sometimes expelling them.

Frustrated with such behaviour, and after 13 more resolutions reaffirming the inspections, the UN Security Council passed the famous resolution 1441 in 2002.

This stated that the weapons inspectors be allowed complete free reign to ensure disarmament, and that Iraq will face “serious consequences” if it fails to do this.

It was seen as a last chance. However all members of the UN knew that this was not Security Council consent for war if Iraq didn’t comply. Even the US’s ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, stated this on the day of the vote.

Nevertheless, on March 20th 2003 President Bush launched war on Iraq without a new resolution.

The reasoning was not that they thought there were WMDs, but that the weapons inspectors were not allowed free access. Therefore this broke the terms of resolution 687 and cease-fire from 1991, and thereby resurrected resolution 678 which allowed the use of force for the 1990 Gulf War.

Criticisms

Effectively the US and the UK were going to war with Iraq using permission for a war 13 years earlier.

Technically it could be argued that this was legal. However, this was not the intention of 678 which related to Kuwait, nor is it the intention of the principles in the UN Charter.

Most crucially, the key assumption that the UN weapons inspectors were not being allowed free reign at the time was false.

UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix stated only weeks before the war that his team had successfully inspected the majority of sites, uncovering no real evidence, and he only needed a few more months to complete the task.

Shockingly, Blix revealed in an interview in 2003 that Vice-President Dick Cheney said to him “we will not hesitate to discredit you in favour of disarmament.” In other words, tell us there are WMD’s or we will claim you’re incompetent and go to war anyway.

It was also not proven that Iraq was involved in September 11 therefore the US could not claim to be acting in self-defence.

In terms of pre-emptive self-defence – that is attacking them before they get a chance to attack you – this has not been established in international law due to the rather large grey area it would create.

The US and UK governments, along with a willing media, created a sense in the public that the legal test was ‘do we think they have WMDs?’ As you can see from international law and their legal reasoning, it wasn’t that simple at all.

Given it can be reasonably considered illegal, and the astronomical number of casualties, the Iraq War could arguably be seen as the biggest crime of the decade.

By The Casual Truth

Photo/UN Photo - President George W Bush and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan