Richard Perle Says Iraq Invasion Violated International Law,

[Theophylact]

Defends It Anyway.

You could hear the jaws drop miles away:

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".

Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.

"They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, a spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high court challenge to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law suits them that they want to use it."

Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war, according to Rabinder Singh QC, who represented CND and also participated in Tuesday's event.

Certainly the British government, he said, "has never advanced the suggestion that it is entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in relation to Iraq".

The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a divergence of view between the British govern ment and some senior voices in American public life [who] have expressed the view that, well, if it's the case that international law doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN, then the defect is in international law".

Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the right of each state to self-defence, including pre-emptive self-defence. On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush reiterated America's "sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies were under imminent threat.

Coalition officials countered that the security council had already approved the use of force in resolution 1441, passed a year ago, warning of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to give a complete ac counting of its weapons programmes.

Other council members disagreed, but American and British lawyers argued that the threat of force had been implicit since the first Gulf war, which was ended only by a ceasefire.

"I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University who opposed the war, arguing that it was illegal.

"And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American public would have supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did, had the administration said that all along."

[shahani]

George is gonna be mad at Richard.

[wallie_x]

I think the anti-war zealots are fishing for straws. His statement does not necessarily mean he believes the war is not justified, and violated international law; but rather immoral despots can bend and use the law to their own advantage.

The point is that what must be done can differ from the written letter, and just because it is a 'law' by no means makes it right or just.

[shahani]

As long as its the law, breaking it is illegal. If the law is not just it needs to be changed through due process.

Breaking laws, just or unjust, as Mr Bush seems to have a proclivity to do, is illegal.

Anyway you slice it.

[MTAtech]

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

Yes, the world is some much better now.

"As one U.N. official told me, Iraqi women were once raped by Qusay and Uday, Saddam's sons; now they are raped by everybody else. Fewer women are in the labor force than under Saddam because now they don't dare leave their homes." - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[J-Excel]

All this anti-war crap can be summed up in two words... "SORE" and "LOSERS". We ousted Saddam despite your objections. Get over it.

[MTAtech]

If Iraq today is a 'Win' I'd hate to see a 'Lose.' We've losing 50 soldiers and 350 wounded a month and a billion bucks a week.

[M_Six]

I didn't object to ousting Saddam. I objected to ousting Saddam without a valid plan for the aftermath. I'm still objecting.

[shahani]

Win the battle (Saddam's ouster), Lose the War (soldiers killed everyday, $1 Billion/week cost, terrorism rekindled....)

Yeah, sums up Bush's record.

[MTAtech]

That's right M-six, it wasn't about Saddam it was sold as the U.S. was threatened. Saddam was a change of the subject.