Is it time to disband the UN? ( Archived) (42)

OK, first of all the claim for the justification to invade Iraq namely, because they broke UN resolutions which gave the west the autorization to use force, is a claim not made by Democrats but by Republicans. Therefore you are being very clever in tasking me to defend your side. I'm not going to fall for such a trick. I will however give you this:

"Was the UN general secretary Kofi Annan correct when he described the Iraq war as illegal?


Yes, he was correct and brave to say that. As I describe at some length in Lawless World, the war was illegal because it was not authorised by the UN Security Council, and was not justified as self-defence in the sense envisaged by Articles 2:4 and 51 of the UN Charter.


There is a third emerging possible justification for the use of force, but it was not invoked by Britain or the US - the argument of humanitarian intervention, using force to protect fundamental human rights from an immediate and massive threat. Since that was not the situation in Iraq in March 2003, it could not be argued, and it wasn't argued.


So, what remains is the argument put forward by Britain, the US and Australia that the Security Council had authorised the use of force by a combination of Resolutions 678, 687, and 1441. The heart of the argument is that Iraq was subject to a ceasefire after the first Gulf War of February 1991, and that that ceasefire obligation was dependent on Iraq's compliance with an obligation to disarm and eliminate its weapons of mass destruction. The proponents of legality claim that Iraq did not disarm, and hence was in material breach of the earlier obligations. According to that claim, being in material breach, the ceasefire fell away, and the original right to use force was revived. That is therefore known as the 'revival argument'.


The problem with this argument is that it depends upon the determination by those countries that they can unilaterally decide that Iraq is in material breach - that view is not shared by the vast majority of international lawyers or states or the UN secretary general. The overwhelming majority consider that the critical determination of whether or not there was a material breach is for the Security Council to decide. That is the importance of a second Security Council resolution, which was sought by prime minister Blair in March 2003, but which was not achieved. In those circumstances, in my view, the war was patently illegal.

Here's another tidbit for you. Israel has broken more UN resolutions than any other country in the world. Should we invade Israel?

"Washington, D.C., September 22, 2010 – Following instructions from President George W. Bush to develop an updated war plan for Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered CENTCOM Commander Gen. Tommy Franks in November 2001 to initiate planning for the “decapitation” of the Iraqi government and the empowerment of a “Provisional Government” to take its place.


Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush. (Source: Department of Defense)

Talking points for the Rumsfeld-Franks meeting on November 27, 2001, released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), confirm that policy makers were already looking for ways to justify invading Iraq – as indicated by Rumsfeld’s first point, “Focus on WMD.”


This document shows that Pentagon policy makers cited early U.S. experience in Afghanistan to justify planning for Iraq’s post-invasion governance in order to achieve their strategic objectives: “Unlike in Afghanistan, important to have ideas in advance about who would rule afterwards.”


Rumsfeld’s notes were prepared in close consultation with senior DOD officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Among other insights, the materials posted today by the National Security Archive shed light on the intense focus on Iraq by high-level Bush administration officials long before the attacks of 9/11, and Washington’s confidence in perception management as a successful strategy for overcoming public and allied resistance to its plans.

This compilation further shows:

The preliminary strategy Rumsfeld imparted to Franks while directing him to develop a new war plan for Iraq
Secretary of State Powell’s awareness, three days into a new administration, that Iraq “regime change” would be a principal focus of the Bush presidency
Administration determination to exploit the perceived propaganda value of intercepted aluminum tubes – falsely identified as nuclear related – before completion of even a preliminary determination of their end use
The difficulty of winning European support for attacking Iraq (except that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair) without real evidence that Baghdad was implicated in 9/11
The State Department’s analytical unit observing that a decision by Tony Blair to join a U.S. war on Iraq “could bring a radicalization of British Muslims, the great majority of whom opposed the September 11 attacks but are increasingly restive about what they see as an anti-Islamic campaign”
Pentagon interest in the perception of an Iraq invasion as a “just war” and State Department insights into the improbability of that outcome
Rumsfeld’s instructions to Franks included the establishment and funding of a provisional government as a significant element of U.S. invasion strategy. In the end the Pentagon changed course and instead ruled post-invasion Iraq directly, first through the short-lived Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and then through Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority.

....will treat the question of whether the Bush administration ever seriously considered alternative strategies for Iraq and how the U.S. and Great Britain attempted to sell the war strategy to the world.

~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/index.htm

You are correct.... You didn't say the US broke resolutions and that was my big gripe. My apologies for incorrectly reading that.

My minor gripe is that not only did Iraq break the UN resolutions (virtually all of them), but they broke OUR ceasefire agreement. with or without the UN agreement violations, breaching the ceasefire agreement was all the cause necessary.

I'm not actually sure the UN should be disbanded, but I'm struggling to find an argument to support them being worth what all the Nation Members are paying for their existence.

P.s. Apologies for mistakenly accusing you of lying because I incorrectly read it, too.

Not a problem. I don't get offended too easily sometimes discussions can get a little heated and emotions get tweeked.

BTW, I think something like the UN is necessary if just to provide a venue for world leaders to meet to iron out differences before they start lobbing bombs at each other. Maybe the structure should be modified and maybe it needs to be reorganized. As I've seen on TV documentaries the UN played a big role in avoiding the start of WW3 during the Cuban missle crisis. So that alone justifies their existance in my mind.