London, Thursday, November 20, 2003War critics
astonished as US hawk admits Iraq invasion was
illegal Oliver Burkeman and Julian
Borger
in Washington  INTERNATIONAL
lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with
astonishment yesterday after the influential
Pentagon hawk Richard Perle (right) 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 at the Old
Vic theatre 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 night'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 government 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 [2003], 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 accounting 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." The controversy-prone Mr Perle resigned his
chairmanship of the defence policy board earlier
this year but remained a member of the advisory
board. A Pentagon spokesman pointed out yesterday that
Mr Perle was not on the defence department staff,
but was a member of an unpaid advisory board. Mr Perle refused to elaborate on his
remarks. 
... on this
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-
Conyers
demands investigation of Warmonger Perle's
conflict of interests
 - Richard
Perle, the Lowdown:
"That's odd.
When Jonathan Pollard did much the same, passing
vital U.S. defense secrets to Israel, he was
sent to jail for life. What has changed since
then, one wonders?"
The
Guardian also unmasks Richard Perle and his
gang: "When he is not
too busy at the Pentagon, or too busy running
Hollinger Digital - part of the group that
publishes the Daily Telegraph in Britain - or at
board meetings of the Jerusalem Post, Mr Perle
is "resident fellow" at one of the thinktanks -
the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI)."-
Richard
Perle warns Germans not to oppose US war: "Ein
deutsches Nein im Sicherheitsrat wäre
katastrophal" (in
German)
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