The US would be acting illegally in attacking Iraq and attempting to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the foreign ministers of France, Russia and Germany told the UN Security Council.
Hours before the US-led coalition launched a cruise missile and precision bomb strike against Iraq, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told the Security Council on Wednesday that no UN resolution authorized military action or "the violent overthrow of the leadership of a sovereign state."
There are also "no indisputable facts" to demonstrate that Iraq threatens the US, he said. If there were, the administration of US President George W. Bush could exercise its right under the UN Charter to respond in self-defense.
The foreign ministers of Russia, France and Germany attended an open council meeting held before the clock ran out on a Wednesday evening deadline set by Bush for Saddam to leave Iraq or face war.
Though the Bush administration has said the time for diplomacy was over, the ministers made a point of reaffirming their opposition to war and asserting the primacy of the UN.
Declaring that military intervention "has no credibility," Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer also stressed, "There is no basis in the UN Charter for a regime change with military means."
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin reiterated his country's contention that a war would not only be illegal but would exacerbate the tensions and divisions on which "terrorists feed."
"To those who think that the scourge of terrorism will be eradicated through what is done in Iraq, we say that they run the risk of failing in their objective," he said.
"An outbreak of force in such an unstable area can only exacerbate the tensions and fractures on which terrorists feed."
His Russian counterpart said no UN Security Council resolution authorized the use of force against Iraq outside the UN charter, and "not one of them authorizes the violent overthrow of the leadership of a sovereign state."
Ivanov said if there were a great threat to the security of the US "then Russia, without any hesitation would use all the means available provided under the UN charter to eliminate such a threat."
"However, the Security Council today is not in possession of such facts," Ivanov said, in a reference to the Bush administration's linkage of terrorism to the Baghdad government.
The three ministers did not say they would raise the issue in the council after the war began.
They insisted the UN Security Council would have a role in the aftermath of war.
Iraq's UN Ambassador Moham-med Al-Douri said he was planning on submitting a letter, possibly yesterday, to the UN condemning the attack on his country.
Al-Douri called the military action "a breach of peace" and "a violation of international law."
"It seems that the war of aggression against my country has started," he told reporters outside the Iraqi mission Wednesday night.
Predicting "imminent disaster" for the people of Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan implored the US and its allies Wednesday not to forsake humanitarian aid when the fighting starts.
"This is a sad day for the United Nations," Annan said. "I know that millions of people around the world share this sense of disappointment and are deeply alarmed."
He said he plans to submit proposals to the council shortly on adjusting the UN oil-for-food program, which was providing food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies for about 60 percent of Iraq's 22 million people until it was suspended this week.
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