The Sunday Times of London has
continued their weekly feature of printing documents showing the illegality of the Iraq war, and the methods to excuse the war under misinterpretations, or extremely generous interpretations of national and international law.
With this document, they give us Annex A to the Cabinet Briefing Document released earlier.
Some very interesting, in my opinion, quotes below.
First, we have this quote discussing interpretations of UNSC resolution 687 and 678:
2. In the UK's view a violation of Iraq's obligations which undermines the basis of the cease-fire in resolution 687 (1991) can revive the authorisation to use force in resolution 678 (1990). As the cease-fire was proclaimed by the Council in resolution 687 (1991), it is for the Council to assess whether any such breach of those obligations has occurred. The US have a rather different view: they maintain that the assessment of breach is for individual member states. We are not aware of any other state which supports this view.
Later on, we have discussion of the No Fly Zones, with the apparent conclusion that they were not quite within the definitions applied (i originally wanted to say illegal, but it doesn't quite go that far.
8. The NFZs over Northern and Southern Iraq are not established by UN Security Council Resolutions. They were established in 1991 and 1992 on the basis that they were necessary and proportionate steps taken to prevent a humanitarian crisis. Prior to the establishment of the Northern NFZ the Security Council had adopted resolution 688 (1991) on 5 April 1991 in which the Council stated that it was gravely concerned by the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq, including most recently in Kurdish populated areas, which had led to a massive refugee flow, and that it was deeply disturbed by the magnitude of the human suffering involved. The resolution condemned that repression of the Iraqi civilian population and demanded that Iraq immediately end the repression. In our view, the purpose of the NFZs is to monitor Iraqi compliance with the provisions of resolution 688. UK and US aircraft patrolling the NFZs are entitled to use force in self-defence where such a use of force is a necessary and proportionate response to actual or imminent attack from Iraqi ground systems.
9. The US have on occasion claimed that the purpose of the NFZs is to enforce Iraqi compliance with resolutions 687 or 688. This view is not consistent with resolution
687, which does not deal with the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, or with resolution 688, which was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and
does not contain any provision for enforcement. Nor (as it is sometimes claimed) were the current NFZs provided for in the Safwan agreement, a provisional agreement between coalition and Iraqi military commanders of 3 March 1991, laying down military conditions for the cease-fire which did not contain any reference to the NFZs.
Just a little before this (sorry to jump around, but I wanted to close with something good) the people preparing this document discuss the basis for preemption on the basis of a "threat."
6. For the exercise of the right to self-defence there must be more than "a threat". There has to be an armed attack actual or imminent. The development or possession of nuclear weapons does not in itself amount to an armed attack; what would be needed would be clear evidence of an imminent attack. During the Cold War, there was certainly a threat in the sense that various states had nuclear weapons which they might, at short notice unleash upon each other. But that did not mean the mere possession of nuclear weapons, or indeed their possession in time of high tension or attempt to obtain them, was sufficient to justify pre-emptive action. And when Israel attacked an Iraqi nuclear reactor, near Baghdad, on 7 June 1981 it was "strongly condemned" by the Security Council (acting unanimously) as a "military attack in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct."
In short, this document of legal advice says that any and all of the reasons Bush gave for war were, at the very best, not within the intentions of international law and, at the very worst, flagrant violations of international law.
I wonder how US media shall react?