The Iraq War – The First Unlawful and Unethical War of The Third Millennium

By M.A. Rane

On 19 March 2003, the Bush and Blair administrations commenced a war against Iraq and its people with the aid of a few other Governments like that of Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia and Poland. Waged in defiance of the United Nations Security Council, the war will go down in history as the first unlawful and unethical war of the third millennium.

An Illegal War

The Iraq war is unlawful because it was waged in contravention of international law. The relevant articles that prohibit one nation or alliance of nations waging war against any other nation or nations are embodied  in Chapter VII of the 1945 United Nations Charter under the caption "Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression".

Article 39:

The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 41:

The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio and to other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

Article 42:

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Article 51:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by the Members in the exerciseof this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

It is clear from the above that no member or members of the United Nations are entitled to wage a war against Iraq unilaterally in defiance of the UN Security Council. It is also clear that a "war of choice" is not permitted. A "war of necessity" in self defence if attacked by another country is permitted under Article 51 – this too is a temporary measure till the Security Council takes steps necessary to maintain international peace and security. Article 51 does not legitimise a pre-emptive war against any nation on the pretext that there is an imminent

threat of attack by the said nation.

An Unethical War

Claims were made by the Bush and Blair adminstrations and their spin-doctors that Saddam Hussein was in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) which he might deploy at any time within 45 minutes. In September 2002, the Blair Government prepared a dossier to that effect for public consumption allegedly based on intelligence collected by MI6, their intelligence agency. The Bush administration relied upon this British intelligence in addition to their own. Further, the CIA is supposed to have collected intelligence that Saddam Hussein was engaged in procuring uranium from an African country so that he could refine the same and manufacture nuclear weapons. All these claims were being made when a team of Inspectors working in Iraq and headed by Hans Blix and Mohammed al Baredie, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a watchdog body, said they could not find any "smoking gun".

A plea by Hans Blix for more time was ignored by the Bush and Blair administrations which were eager to start the war. Recently, Paul O’Neil, former US Treasury Secretary, who was once on Bush’s National Security Team announced that he (O’Neil) never saw any evidence of Iraqi WMD. Instead, he said, Bush had been "gunning for Saddam Hussein since the day he took office". A team known as Iraq Survey Group (ISG) of 1200 personnel including 400 scientists headed by David Kay was deputed by the Bush Administration to trace Saddam’s WMD. The ISG carried out its search for nine months but the result was nil. Kay therefore tendered his resignation from the ISG out of disgust on the specific ground there were no WMDs in Iraq.

Stockpile of Lies, Lies and Damned Lies

The Indian Express

of 27 January 2004 published a report from Washington by the Press Trust of India stating inter alia that "Colin Powell, US Secretary of State has said that the pre-war Iraq may not have possessed the WMD.

This same Colin Powell had vehemently argued in the UN Security Council before the war started that force had to be used to strip Iraq of WMD, but now blamed the intelligence community for this statement …". Before the Iraq war was waged, President Bush delivered a State of the Union speech in which he alleged that Saddam was engaged in collecting Uranium from an African country as per intelligence. That country was alleged to be Niger. A former American Ambassador Joseph Wilson was entrusted with the task of inquiring into the matter. The Ambassador is believed to have reported that the intelligence was based on fabricated documents. Therefore in his second State of the Union speech delivered during the pendency of the war, Bush admitted that the eight sentences relating to the acquisition of uranium from an African country ought not to have found their place in his first State of the Union speech delivered before the war. Thus the second major lie to justify the war was also laid to rest.

More Skeletons and More Bluffing

Prime Minister Blair, who was described by the British media itself as the poodle of Bush, could not convince his own Foreign Minister Robin Cook. Cook resigned on the issue of the war and another Cabinet Minister, Ms. Clare Short, International Development Secretary, resigned in the midst of the war. She recently made startling revelations that the room of Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General was bugged by British and US intelligence and as a Minister, she had come across a transcript of such bugging before the commencement of the war.

Now it is conclusively proved beyond all reasonable doubt from the unequivocal admissions of Bush, Blair, Colin Powell and David Kay, that Saddam was not in possession of WMDs before the war was waged. Bush has said that there was a liaison between Saddam and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. He even went to the absurd length of alleging that some of the hijackers of the planes on 9/11 were Iraqi terrorists. There can be no two opinions that Saddam was a cruel, ruthless and inhuman dictator and his two sons and his Baathist Party were equally cruel tormentors of the Iraqi people. But they were not religious fanatics or fundamentalist jehadis like Bin Laden, Al Qaeda or the Taliban ruling Afghanistan.

Human Rights of Iraqis

Bush and Blair appear to have expected that the occupation forces would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqis freed from the evil regime of Saddam, just as in Normandy, France and Germany the Allied Forces were welcomed as liberators, after the D-Day on 6th June 1944. But that did not happen in Iraq. Instead they met with guerrilla warfare, and the body bags have started piling up.

But only the dead American and Western armed forces are being counted. And there is no account of how many innocent Iraqis died in the cluster bombings. The Iraqi casualties are privately estimated to exceed 10,000 (latest figures published in The Lancet put this at an estimated 100,000). It is now revealed that Iraqi prisoners brought for interrogation in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad were subjected to sadistic sexual abuse by the American Marines dressed in civilian dress, in violation of the Geneva Convention. On 7th May 2004, a House Senate Committee of the US summoned the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who admitted responsibility, apologized and assured action against the guilty army personnel. If only he and his staff had woken up to their responsibilities earlier! A report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as published in the Times of India of 8th May 2004 said, "The Red Cross repeatedly requested the US authorities to take corrective action to stop the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Its advice, however, went unheeded for more than nine months".

Pulling out of the Quagmire

Bush and Blair have now secured recognition for the coalition forces from the UN as a legitimate occupying force in Iraq, and the new Interim Government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has been installed. The new government is entrusted with the responsibility of holding an election in Iraq by January 2005, of course, under the protection of the occupying forces.

Will the Iraqis, that is the Shias constituting sixty percent of the population and occupying mostly the southern part of Iraq, the Sunnis residing in the middle region of Iraq, who were the dominant community under Saddam, the Kurds, residing in the North and other minorities, including several tribals, hammer out a workable and agreed democratic Constitution, live in peace and prosperity and be a democracy? Or will they fight among themselves, necessitating the continuation of the occupation forces, mostly American and British? The world can only wait and watch with crossed fingers.

Meanwhile, violence by suicide bombers goes on unabated. Because their faith is that as Jehadis, they go straight to heaven, even if the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have said, "The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of a martyr". Now more terrorist organisations are coming up in Iraq, like the Holders of Black Banners, who choose soft targets. They kidnap innocent truckers belonging to other countries, who drive trucks in Iraq as employees of Transport Companies like KGL of Kuwait. The object is to blackmail, and to collect ransom, by threatening to execute the captives.

Thus there is no peace, no law and order or rule of law in occupied Iraq.

Great disservice to Humanity

Inspite of its own severe indictments of the Bush and Blair governments in waging the war, in an issue with the cover page "Sincere Deceivers" The Economist weekly which has been consistently supporting the war against Iraq, concludes its article "... that invasion made possible a stable, more prosperous Iraq, despite all the turbulence".

Is that so? Today Iraq is most unstable and nobody’s life is safe due to the entry of a large number of Al Qaeda and other foreign jehadis. The serial bombings in the trains at Madrid on the eve of the general elections were the direct result of the Spanish Government sending their armed forces to Iraq as part of the coalition forces. The new leftist government in Spain withdrew their troops from Iraq. The President of Poland, who contributed about 2500 armed forces by joining the coalition in Iraq, went public by alleging that Bush took the Polish government for a ride.

What have Bush and Blair achieved by the illegal and immoral war against Iraq? Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq has been dethroned and captured. But is there any guarantee that abatement of violence, restoration of peace, law and order and the rule of law and establishment of democracy, will take place in Iraq within a reasonable period of time? There does not appear any signs of light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of messing with Iraq, it would have been wiser had Bush and Blair concentrated on eliminating the Taliban and their leader, Osama bin Laden and establish democracy in Afghanistan as per the sanction of the UN Security Council.

The great disservice by Bush and Blair to the Iraqi people was to make the position of Iraqi people more insecure and unsafe than it was under the ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein. There is more insecurity and more danger to life, limb and property of the Iraqi people, less possibility of law and order, rule of law, safety, and resort to a democratic polity.

Today, the United Nations, formed with the object of establishing peace in the world and banishing wars once for all, is voiceless against its powerful members. This too is Bush and Blair’s great disservice to humanity.

M. A. Rane is President of the Mumbai branch of the Indian Radical Humanist Association and Trustee of Indian Renaissance Institute, both IHEU Member organizations. A well known advocate and civil rights activist, Rane is also President of the Bombay branch of the Citizens for Democracy.