Perle shocks crowd by admitting Iraq war was illegal

Richard Perle has admitted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq violated international law. Here's a story about it. Not surprisingly, I haven't seen anything about this anywhere in the American press.

Here are his quotes on the subject:

"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."

Pretty startling admission. I guess this begs the question - at what point do our national interests supercede international law? And did the situation in Iraq reach that point?

I think there's room for debate on the first question, but the answer to the second question is clearly no.