International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment on Wednesday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and London lines, Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
US President George W. 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-defense permitted by international law.
But Perle, a key member of the defense policy board which advises US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave [former Iraqi president] 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."
Perle, who was speaking at an event organized by the Institute of Contemporary Arts at the Old Vic theater in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of Saddam since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
"They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a court challenge to the war's legality last year.
Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war, according to Rabinder Singh, the attorney who represented the UK's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and also participated in the 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."
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-defense, including pre-emptive self-defense.
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 programs.
"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," Dorf said.
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying