Thank you David for the post. At least someone stepped up with a valid argument. Although, I do have to agree with Doug. The German High Court does not speak for the U.N. If the U.N. would like to come forward and suggest that the U.S. is breaking international law, then that would be something, but otherwise, I'm still of the opinion that calling the war illegal is not FACT.
But back to the issues you raised. First of all, Who exactly was present to argued on behalf of the U.S. and England in this trial?
Second, I'm not sure I'm following the rules of the game here. Why would you need a second U.N. resolution to officially repeal the first U.N. resolution that was not being followed? A cease fire is a cease fire only until someone starts shooting again.
In an Issue Brief for Congress that I got through a Library of Congress link, (
http://www.fas.org/main/home.jsp) they document; "During March 2000-March 2001, Iraqi air defense fired at or near fixed radar or allied aircraft enforcing the zones on 500 occasions."
Further, speaking of Iraq's chemical weapons, following what was supposed to have been the conclusion of formal destruction operations on June of 1994, "the fate of about 31,600 chemical munitions, 550 mustard gas bombs, and 4,000 tons of chemical precursors, remains unknown." and "In 1998 UNSCOM discovered that shells taken from Iraq in 1996 contained 97% pure mustard gas, indicating it was freshly produced."
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
But your right, we should definitely have waited for the U.N. to repeal the ceasefire, because I'm sure Sadaam would have gotten official approval through the U.N. before he used any of these weapons.
And as for U.N. resolution 687, it requires Iraq - in return for a graduated easing of sanctions - to end its weapons of mass destruction programs, recognize Kuwait, account for missing Kuwaitis, return Kuwaiti property, and end support for terrorism. About the only thing they DID DO is recognize Kuwait.
Whether we found WMDs or not is not a valid issue at all, we had the right to look and the burden of proof was on Iraq. They threw the inspectors out, so we had every right to assume that they either already had WMD's or were carrying out operations to create them.
And check yourself before you start putting all this on Bush again, most of these reports were issued during the Clinton administration.
