[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re : UN and Iraq

[Shaun Hately]

On 29 Sep 2004 at 16:56, olivier.fouquet+harry at m4x.org wrote:

> Many issues have been raised by Shaun's post.
> 
> One is whether or not the invasion of Iraq was desirable.
> Another is whether or not it was legal in terms of international law.
> Yet another one is whether or not it would be desirable to modify 
> international law to allow operation of this kind.
> 
> About these three issues, only the second one has a clear cut answer in 
> my opinion. The invasion of Iraq was illegal. Only the Security Council 
> has the authority to allow the use of force. In that case, it did not. 
> The only other options is self-defense. As far as we knew then (and now 
> incidentally), Iraq had no military plans against other countries nor 
> weapons of mass destruction aimed at its neighbors. The case for 
> self-defense being close, the invasion was and remains illegal, as the 
> UN Secretary General reminded a few days ago.

Sorry, it's not a clear cut answer at all - and I note that the 
Secretary General shortly after saying the war was illegal, 
'clarified' his statements to say that that wasn't what he meant to 
say (probably after he actually spoke to some international 
lawyers).

Under international law, it is, in fact, very likely that the 
invasion of Iraq was legal - whether it should have been or not is 
another question. But the 1990/91 law ended in a cease fire that 
was contingent on Iraq acceding to certain demands. Iraq failed to 
accede to those demands and under international laws relating to 
cease fires, that means the war can continue. Further US and other 
nations aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones were fired upon on 
numerous occasions by Iraqi troops. In international law, 
deliberately targeting the military assets of a nation is a clear 
casus belli.

The major issue in international law is Iraq's repeated violation 
of the cease fire agreement which was put in place in 1991. It 
wasn't just one violation, it was numerous violations, and the 
requirement for Iraq to comply was stated and restated by the 
Security Council on several occasions, so it wasn't a dead issue.

The WMD issue created another casus belli, which might now be 
considered invalid - but it wasn't the only one.

The Security Council could have made the war illegal, by passing a 
resolution - but it couldn't do that either, again because of the 
veto power.

> However, I would like to remind that France did not veto any resolution 
> on Iraq. The United States (nor any member of the coalition) did not 
> bother to suggest one. US officials at that time have argued that they 
> couldn't see the point as France was going to veto it anyway. We will 
> never know what would have happened, but my guess is France would never 
> have had to veto it for the reason the resolution would have been 
> rejected the standard way (more people voting against than in favor). 
> This may have been different at another time (with more pro-war nations 
> in the Security Council) but at the time of the vote, the diplomatic 
> way did not look too good for the US. According to 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UN_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_war 
> only 4 countries out of the nine needed declared unambiguously their 
> intention to vote in favor of a resolution calling for the use of 
> force.

That is correct - but if France hadn't been willing to veto, it is 
likely that at least 9 of the 15 nations involved, possibly more, 
would have supported the UN Resolution. A significant number were 
not willing to support it unless France was, because a situation in 
which the Security Council rendered a majority vote, only to have 
it vetoed by France, could have damaged the Security Council almost 
beyond repair. And that was not worth risking.

The US and the UK did draft resolutions - but didn't present them 
for exactly the same reason. Because if they'd presented them and 
they'd been blocked by France, that would have more or less 
destroyed all credibility that the Security Council has.

The Security Council is important - too important to risk 
destroying it over a fairly minor issue like Iraq (minor being a 
relative term - but the Security Council has been instrumental in 
stopping at least one nuclear war from happening - compared to 
that, Iraq is a minor issue).

The US *might* have been willing to push matters and risk the 
Security Council - I doubt it, but it's not impossible. The UK most 
certainly was not.

It's by no means certain that a majority would have passed in the 
Security Council - but it is quite possible.
 
> So veto has not been a problem in this particularly case. As a side 
> note, I would like to remind that in the past 30 years (since 1976 to 
> be accurate), US has used its veto right 67 times, UK 19 times, France 
> 12 times, USSR/Russia 9 times and China twice. If we are to consider a 
> reform of the veto system, I dare say we can expect more opposition 
> from the US than from any other country.

I agree that the US is likely to resist - all the countries are 
likely to resist. That's the problem. Getting rid of the veto power 
is not in the interests of any of the veto nations.

But the thing is part of the reason for those figures is that since 
the 1970s, the US, UK, and France rarely raised issues in the 
Security Council when they knew that Russia or China would veto. 
There was no point, and doing so simply risked the Security 
Councils credibility. On the other hand, resolutions aimed 
specifically at Israel (the vast majority of those vetoed by the 
United States) became common - the Security Council really became a 
forum to bash Israel (I'm not saying Israel is never in the wrong - 
but equally problematic actions by other nations of the same power 
level as Israel virtually *never* attract Security Council 
attention).

Prior to 1976, vetoes ran as 113 by the Soviet Union, 12 by the 
United States, 13 by the United Kingdom, 6 by France, and 3 by 
China (1 by Nationalist China, 2 by Communist China).

The 113 vetoes (out of 147) by the Soviet Union were seriously 
harming the integrity and reputation of the Security Council - so 
the western powers stopped presenting issues they knew Russia was 
likely to veto, because they were trying to protect the Security 
Council. That's the reason why since 1976, Russia has rarely vetoed 
anything - because most things they would have vetoed, never 
reached it.
 
> Last but not least, the more moral question of whether or not war in 
> Iraq was desirable. My belief is that it is a good thing to get rid of 
> a harsh dictator and mass-murderer, as was Saddam Hussein, but that 
> international laws are the only thing we have to ensure peace, so that 
> they should be followed. Indeed, if invading the country of a harsh 
> dictator is ok, then Saddam was right to invade Kuwait in 1991, as 
> Kuwait was far from being a democracy then (nor now by the way). Do we 
> want a world like that? I personally don't. Besides, I am quite sure 
> that if the member of the Security Council really wanted to overthrew 
> dictators around the world, they could easily find regimes deemed 
> horrible by human rights association that they nonetheless happily 
> supports. Maybe cutting off their support until free elections were 
> organized would be a better idea than direct invasion.

The problem is it doesn't work very often.

Iraq was under sanctions for over a decade. These sanctions were 
largely intended to force his removal from office. They didn't 
succeed.

There's nothing wrong with trying those methods - because there are 
rare occasions, where they are successful. But when you've tried 
them for 12 years, and they haven't done any good, it's time to do 
something else.

International law does not ensure peace.  In fact the number of 
wars increased every decade between the 1940s and the 1990s.    

The duration of the average war has increased over time, as well.  

War should never be engaged in lightly - but history shows us that 
often refusal to fight a war, simply means fighting a worse war in 
a few years time.  

The clearest example of this is World War II - where Germany was 
allowed to ignore the conditions of the peace treaty that ended 
World War I and build up its armies, and then when it started to 
occupy its neighbours, the world was so desperate to avoid war - 
that to begin with, it let Hitler get away with it. Thus ensuring a 
worse war).

And while Kuwait is certainly no bastion of freedom, it has never 
compared to Iraq under Saddam Hussein - Iraq used chemical weapons 
on its own citizens in acts of deliberate genocide. There are 
plenty of other dictatorships in the world - but relatively few 
have been as brutal as Saddam Hussein's.  


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia