Top judge: US and UK acted as 'vigilantes' in Iraq invasion
One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".
Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general's defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.
Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith's advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: "It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had." Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions "passes belief".
Governments were bound by international law as much as by their domestic laws, he said. "The current ministerial code," he added "binding on British ministers, requires them as an overarching duty to 'comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations'."
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continue to press for an independent inquiry into the circumstances around the invasion. The government says an inquiry would be harmful while British troops are in Iraq. Ministers say most of the remaining 4,000 will leave by mid-2009.
Addressing the British Institute of International and Comparative Law last night, Bingham said: "If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK, and some other states was unauthorised by the security council there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and the rule of law.
"For the effect of acting unilaterally was to undermine the foundation on which the post-1945 consensus had been constructed: the prohibition of force (save in self-defence, or perhaps, to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe) unless formally authorised by the nations of the world empowered to make collective decisions in the security council ..."
The moment a state treated the rules of international law as binding on others but not on itself, the compact on which the law rested was broken, Bingham argued. Quoting a comment made by a leading academic lawyer, he added: "It is, as has been said, 'the difference between the role of world policeman and world vigilante'."
Bingham said he had very recently provided an advance copy of his speech to Goldsmith and to Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq. He told his audience he should make it plain they challenged his conclusions.
Both men emphasised that point last night by intervening to defend their views as consistent with those held at the time of the invasion. Goldsmith said in a statement: "I stand by my advice of March 2003 that it was legal for Britain to take military action in Iraq. I would not have given that advice if it were not genuinely my view. Lord Bingham is entitled to his own legal perspective five years after the event." Goldsmith defended what is known as the "revival argument" - namely that Saddam Hussein had failed to comply with previous UN resolutions which could now take effect. Goldsmith added that Tony Blair had told him it was his "unequivocal view" that Iraq was in breach of its UN obligations to give up weapons of mass destruction.
Straw said last night that he shared Goldsmith's view. He continued: "However controversial the view that military action was justified in international law it was our attorney general's view that it was lawful and that view was widely shared across the world."
Bingham also criticised the post-invasion record of Britain as "an occupying power in Iraq". It is "sullied by a number of incidents, most notably the shameful beating to death of Mr Baha Mousa [a hotel receptionist] in Basra [in 2003]", he said.
Such breaches of the law, however, were not the result of deliberate government policy and the rights of victims had been recognised, Bingham observed.
He contrasted that with the "unilateral decisions of the US government" on issues such as the detention conditions in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
After referring to mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib, Bingham added: "Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration." link
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Former senior law lord, Lord Bingham, says Britain broke international law by invading Iraq
Lord Bingham, who retired in September as senior law lord, said in his opinion Lord Goldsmith's advice to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair on Britain's invasion of Iraq was "flawed".
It is thought to be the first time that Lord Bingham has expressed his views about the legal advice given to Mr Blair by the former Attorney General. The issue never came before Lord Bingham while he was sitting as a judge.
In Lord Bingham's view, the effect of unilateral action by Britain, the US and some other countries had been to undermine the foundation on which the post-1945 consensus had been constructed.
This set out that force – except in self-defence or to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe – could not be used unless formally authorised by the United Nations' Security Council.
Lord Bingham summarised the former Attorney General's reliance on three interrelated Security Council resolutions as authorising the Iraq invasion.
On March 7, 2003 Lord Goldsmith considered that UN resolution 1441 could revive the authority to use force which had been suspended but not revoked in earlier resolutions.
Ten days later, Lord Goldsmith told MPs it was "plain" that Iraq had failed to comply with its disarmament obligations and was therefore in material breach of resolution 687.
This justified the use of force because "all that resolution 1441 requires is reporting to and discussion by the Security Council of Iraq's failures, but not an express further decision to authorise force",
Lord Bingham concluded this was "flawed" because "it was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had".
It was also up to the entire Security Council to decide whether Iraq had failed to comply with the resolution.
Lord Bingham noted that Lord Goldsmith's argument for the invasion had been described as "unconvincing", a "bad argument" and "fatuous" by three other leading QCs.
Lord Bingham said: "The moment that a state treats the rules of international law as binding on others but not on itself, the compact on which the law rests is broken."
Last night, Lord Goldsmith said: "I stand by my advice of March 2003 that it was legal for Britain to take military action in Iraq. I would not have given that advice if it were not genuinely my view.
"Lord Bingham is entitled to his own legal perspective five years after the event, but at the time and since then many nations other than ours took part in the action and did so believing that they were acting lawfully."
Justice Secretary Jack Straw added: "Lord Goldsmith's advice that military action was lawful and in accordance with Security Council Resolutions was shared by many member states across the world.
"I do not accept Lord Bingham's conclusions, which do not, I am afraid, take proper account of the text of Security Council Resolution 1441 nor its negotiating history." link
A former top judge said that legal advice given to then prime minister Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was fundamentally "flawed".
In a speech in London on Monday, Thomas Bingham said the statement by the government's then chief lawyer, Peter Goldsmith, just before the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, "was flawed in two fundamental respects".
He said it failed to acknowledge the lack of hard evidence implicating Iraq's non-compliance with United Nations Security Council resolutions, which prompted Britain and the United States to take military action.
"It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had," he said.
"Hans Blix and his team of (UN) weapons inspectors had found no weapons of mass destruction, were making progress and expected to complete their task in a matter of months."
In his speech at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Bingham also suggested that Goldsmith's advice neglected to make clear that only the UN Security Council could authorise further action.
The former law lord said that if military action was unauthorised, "there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and of the rule of law".
The debate revolved around whether UN Security Council Resolution 1441 on Iraq, agreed in 2002, revived the authorisation of the use of force in earlier resolutions or whether a second decision on military action was needed.
Britain and the United States believed it was not.
Goldsmith defended his advice Monday, saying: "I stand by my advice of March 2003 that it was legal for Britain to take military action in Iraq. I would not have given that advice if it were not genuinely my view.
"Lord Bingham is entitled to his own legal perspective five years after the event, but at the time and since then many nations other than ours took part in the action and did so believing that they were acting lawfully."
He said the UN resolution that Iraq was deemed to have failed to comply with did not need further agreement by the security council.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw supported Goldsmith, saying: "I do not accept Lord Bingham's conclusions, which do not, I am afraid, take proper account of the text of Security Council Resolution 1441 nor its negotiating history." link
Legal advice given to Tony Blair by the attorney general prior to the Iraq war was fundamentally "flawed," a former law lord has claimed.
Lord Bingham said Lord Goldsmith had given Mr Blair "no hard evidence" that Iraq had defied UN resolutions "in a manner justifying resort to force".
Therefore, the action by the UK and US was "a serious violation of international law," Lord Bingham added.
Lord Goldsmith said he stood by his advice to the then prime minister.
The Liberal Democrats say that Lord Bingham's comments made a full public inquiry "unavoidable" into the decision to invade Iraq.
Responding to Lord Bingham's criticism, Lord Goldsmith insisted the invasion of Iraq was legal.
"I would not have given that advice if it were not genuinely my view," he said.
'No weapons'
Lord Bingham made his comments in a speech on the rule of law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London.
He referred to a written parliamentary statement made by Lord Goldsmith on 17 March 2003 in which he confirmed that war on Iraq would be legal on the grounds of existing UN resolutions.
Lord Bingham said: "This statement was flawed in two fundamental respects."It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had.
"Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspectors had found no weapons of mass destruction, were making progress and expected to complete their task in a matter of months."
Lord Bingham also criticised Lord Goldsmith for failing to make clear that only the UN Security Council could judge whether there had been compliance and, if appropriate, authorise further action.
"If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK and some other states was unauthorised by the Security Council there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and of the rule of law," he said.
Lord Goldsmith said his critic was "entitled to his own legal perspective".
"But at the time and since then many nations other than ours took part in the action and did so believing that they were acting lawfully," he said.
He also said the UN resolution that Iraq was deemed to have defied - 1441 - did not need further determination by the Security Council.
Lord Chancellor Jack Straw backed Lord Goldsmith, arguing that his advice "was shared by many member states across the world".I do not accept Lord Bingham's conclusions, which do not, I am afraid, take proper account of the text of Security Council Resolution 1441 nor its negotiating history," Mr Straw said.
But Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said Lord Bingham's claims made a full public inquiry into the government's decision to go to war "unavoidable".
"Lord Bingham's stature means that his devastating criticism cannot just be brushed under the carpet," Mr Clegg said.
"This is a damning condemnation of what was an unjustified invasion which we now know to have flouted international law."
Former lord chief justice Lord Bingham retired from the bench in July. Lord Goldsmith stepped down from his post as attorney general last year. link
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Israeli policy escalates ‘cold war’
n an attack which shocked Tel Aviv by the harshness of its tone, Switzerland has accused Israel of wantonly destroying Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and near Ramallah in violation of the Geneva Convention's rules on military occupation.
It's arguably the strongest condemnation of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians to come from any western European country since Charles de Gaulle famously attacked the "oppression, repression and expulsions" of Palestinians by Israel over 40 years ago. And it's come from a country that's not exactly famous for making strong condemnations.
The statement last Thursday from the Swiss Foreign Ministry said that Switzerland - the guardian of the Geneva Convention - regards the "recent incidents", under which scores of Palestinian homes have been destroyed by Israeli bulldozers, as "violations of international humanitarian law" and claimed there was "no military need to justify the destruction of these houses". In addition, the Swiss called east Jerusalem an "integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory" - a statement sure to inflame hard-line Zionists who regard the entire city as belonging to Israel.
The Swiss attack on Israeli actions might surprise some, but it is only the latest incident in a rising 'cold war' between the Alpine republic and the Jewish state. Earlier this year, Israel summoned Swiss Ambassador Walter Haffner to its Foreign Ministry offices in Jerusalem to protest against Switzerland's signing of a multi-billion dollar energy deal with Iran.
So incensed were Zionists when Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey wore a headscarf and was pictured smiling and joking with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, that the Anti-Defamation League placed a series of advertisements in various national newspapers - including Swiss ones - which claimed that Switzerland's energy deal with Iran made Switzerland the "world's newest sponsor of terrorism". Calmy-Rey reacted angrily to Israel's criticism, saying that Switzerland was "an independent country that has its own strategic interests to defend".
It's possible to trace the deterioration of Swiss-Israeli relations to 1998, when Israel was compelled to write a formal letter of apology to Switzerland after five Mossad agents were caught trying to install surveillance equipment in an apartment in Berne in order to bug a Swiss citizen whom Mossad believed was linked to Hezbollah.
In the intervening period Switzerland has become an increasingly vocal champion of the Palestinian cause. As the Middle East conflict escalated, the country even halted all arms sales and military co-operation with Israel for three years in 2002.
Earlier this year, Switzerland was among the 30 countries who voted in support of the UN Human Rights Council resolution
that condemned Israel for "grave violations of the human and humanitarian rights of the Palestinian civilians living in Gaza". It wasn't always like this. The Swiss-Israeli war of words is ironic given the fact that the world's very first Zionist congress was held in Basle in 1897 - and that 15 of the first 22 Zionist Congresses were held in Switzerland.
The Swiss condemnation of Israel today may be dismissed by some as having little global importance, but there are good reasons why Israel ought to be concerned. As guarantor of the Geneva Convention, Switzerland has the power to call meetings of the treaty's signatories if it finds problems with its implementation - something which would be very embarrassing for Israel.
And while it's one thing for Israel to be condemned by countries with a poor human rights record such as Cuba and Saudi Arabia - it's quite another for it to be criticised by a country whose record is beyond reproach. The fact that Switzerland - the home of the Red Cross - has not been involved in a military conflict for 200 years, gives the country a moral authority that many others lack.
Switzerland's independent line on Middle East issues also shows the advantage of maintaining national sovereignty in an age where most countries in Europe have surrendered important decision making powers to the EU. While other countries in Europe have been cajoled, under US and British influence, to moderate their criticisms of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and to agree to swingeing sanctions on Iran - non-EU Switzerland is free to make its own decisions and to say what it thinks about Israeli actions.
It helps, too, that Switzerland is rich enough to follow its own path, without fear of retribution. On this issue, Israel has come up against a state which truly is beholden to nobody link
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illegal war.
One of Britain's most senior legal figures has castigated the Bush administration for its "cynical" disregard for the rule of international law and the UK's record as "an occupying power in Iraq".
Lord Bingham of Cornhill, who has just stepped down as senior law lord, cited the US-led invasion of Iraq, its "redefinition" of torture and the detention conditions of suspects in Guantanamo Bay.
"Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration," he said in a lecture to mark the 50th anniversary of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
It was not clear, he added, what, if any, legal justification the US Government relied on for its invasion of Iraq, although prominent figures had made clear their ambition to remove Saddam Hussein
He was also scathing about the legal advice of the former Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, on Britain's invasion of Iraq which was "flawed" in stating that a second UN Security Council resolution was not needed.
If that was right, the invasion was a "serious violation of international law and of the rule of law," he said.
"The moment that a state treats the rulers of international law as binding on others but not on itself, the compact on which the law rests is broken."
Lord Goldsmith had however been consistent in saying that regime change was not a justification, Lord Bingham said.
But he added that the record of the British as an occupying power in Iraq had been "sullied by a number of incidents, most notably the shameful beating to death of Mr Baha Mousa in Basra".
However, he said: "But such breaches of the law were not as a result of deliberate government policy and the rights of the victims have been recognised."
"This contrasts with the unilteral decisions of the US Government that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the detention conditions in Guantanamo Bay, Cubna; or to trial of al-Qaida or Taliban prisoners by military commissions, or that al-Qaida suspects should be denied the rights of both prisoners of war and crimiman spects and that torture should be redefined, contrary to the Torture Convention."
Lord Bingham said that recent events highlighted two serious deficiencies with the rule of law in the international sphere.
The first was "the willingnesss of some states in some circumstances to rewrite the rules to meet the perceived exigencies of the political situation," he said. The UK did this in the Suez crisis of 1956.
The second was that only 65 of 192 member states of the United Nations had signed up to the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.
"It is a lamentable fact that, of the five permanent members of the Security Council, only one, the United Kingdom, now does so, Russia and China never having done so and France and the United States having withdrawn earlier acceptances."
That step had to be taken if the rule of law was to become truly effective, he said. Meanwhile, he predicted that states "chastened by their experience in Iraq" would be unlikely to repeat it.
Even though not hauled before any international court, they had been "arraigned at the bar of world opinon and judged unfavourably, with resulting damage to their standing and influence". link
A former law lord, Lord Bingham, has claimed that the legal advice on which Britain went to war in Iraq in 2003 was "flawed in two fundamental respects".
In a speech to a legal institute, Lord Bingham said the advice, given to the Government by the then Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, did not provide any evidence that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions, and failed to make clear that only the UN Security Council could authorise action against the middle-eastern state.
Lord Bingham concluded that the Iraq invasion was therefore "a serious violation of international law". Responding to his criticism, Lord Goldsmith said that the invasion was legal, adding: "I would not have given that advice if it were not genuinely my view."
The Liberal Democrats said Lord Bingham's remarks made a full public inquiry into the invasion of Iraq "inevitable". link
No 10 will appeal information request
Number 10 has no intention of giving up the Cabinet minutes on the Iraq war without a fight, in the face of the surprise ruling in Tuesday by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas.
Gordon Brown feels he has nothing to hide - he was only an acquiescent player in the war - but his team have no intention of allowing the precedent to be created whereby the meetings of the Cabinet are fair game for another Freedom of Information request.
They are planning to appeal the decision, then worry about what to do later if the Information Commissioner holds firm and stands by his decision. Such a conflict with the Government would be as unprecedented as the release of the Cabinet minutes.
Clare Short kept a diary during the period covered by the FOI request, March 7-17 2003, and there were two Cabinet meetings during that period - the regular Thursday Cabinet on March 13 and the Special Cabinet to discuss the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith's legal advice that the war was legal.
Short says that the official Cabinet minutes are 'sanitised' and will not reveal anything new. However, the Cabinet Secretary keeps his own account of the proceedings of the Cabinet and that is a much fuller report.
If the FOI ruling forces Downing Street to reveal the Cabinet minutes, stand by for a second request for the Cabinet Secretary's note of the same meetings.
In his ruling, the Information Commissioner said disclosure of the Cabinet minutes was needed to "allow the public to more fully understand this particular decision of the Cabinet".
The person who had made the original FOI request said that not releasing the information created "a public impression that something not entirely truthful has been uttered." link
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What 'change' in America really means.
My first visit to Texas was in 1968, on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of president John F Kennedy in Dallas. I drove south, following the line of telegraph poles to the small town of Midlothian, where I met Penn Jones Jr, editor of the Midlothian Mirror. Except for his drawl and fine boots, everything about Penn was the antithesis of the Texas stereotype. Having exposed the racists of the John Birch Society, his printing press had been repeatedly firebombed. Week after week, he painstakingly assembled evidence that all but demolished the official version of Kennedy’s murder.
This was journalism as it had been before corporate journalism was invented, before the first schools of journalism were set up and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around those whose “professionalism” and “objectivity” carried an unspoken obligation to ensure that news and opinion were in tune with an establishment consensus, regardless of the truth. Journalists such as Penn Jones, independent of vested power, indefatigable and principled, often reflect ordinary American attitudes, which have seldom conformed to the stereotypes promoted by the corporate media on both sides of the Atlantic. Read American Dreams: Lost and Found by the masterly Studs Terkel, who died the other day, or scan the surveys that unerringly attribute enlightened views to a majority who believe that “government should care for those who cannot care for themselves” and are prepared to pay higher taxes for universal health care, who support nuclear disarmament and want their troops out of other people’s countries.
Returning to Texas, I am struck again by those so unlike the redneck stereotype, in spite of the burden of a form of brainwashing placed on most Americans from a tender age: that theirs is the most superior society in the history of the world, and all means are justified, including the spilling of copious blood, in maintaining that superiority.
That is the subtext of Barack Obama’s “oratory”. He says he wants to build up US military power; and he threatens to ignite a new war in Pakistan, killing yet more brown-skinned people. That will bring tears, too. Unlike those on election night, these other tears will be unseen in Chicago and London. This is not to doubt the sincerity of much of the response to Obama’s election, which happened not because of the unction that has passed for news reporting from America since 4 November (e.g. "liberal Americans smiled and the world smiled with them") but for the same reasons that millions of angry emails were sent to the White House and Congress when the “bailout” of Wall Street was revealed, and because most Americans are fed up with war.
Two years ago, this anti-war vote installed a Democratic majority in Congress, only to watch the Democrats hand over more money to George W Bush to continue his blood fest. For his part, the "anti-war" Obama never said the illegal invasion of Iraq was wrong, merely that it was a “mistake”. Thereafter, he voted in to give Bush what he wanted. Yes, Obama’s election is historic, a symbol of great change to many. But it is equally true that the American elite has grown adept at using the black middle and management class. The courageous Martin Luther King recognised this when he linked the human rights of black Americans with the human rights of the Vietnamese, then being slaughtered by a liberal Democratic administration. And he was shot. In striking contrast, a young black major serving in Vietnam, Colin Powell, was used to “investigate” and whitewash the infamous My Lai massacre. As Bush’s secretary of state, Powell was often described as a “liberal” and was considered ideal to lie to the United Nations about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Condaleezza Rice, lauded as a successful black woman, has worked assiduously to deny the Palestinians justice.
Obama’s first two crucial appointments represent a denial of the wishes of his supporters on the principal issues on which they voted. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a proud warmaker and Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, who is to be the all-important White House chief of staff, is a fervent "neoliberal" devoted to the doctrine that led to the present economic collapse and impoverishment of millions. He is also an “Israel-first” Zionist who served in the Israeli army and opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians – an injustice that is at the root of Muslim people’s loathing of the United States and the spawning of jihadism.
No serious scrutiny of this is permitted within the histrionics of Obamamania, just as no serious scrutiny of the betrayal of the majority of black South Africans was permitted within the “Mandela moment”. This is especially marked in Britain, where America’s divine right to “lead” is important to elite British interests. The once respected Observer newspaper, which supported Bush’s war in Iraq, echoing his fabricated evidence, now announces, without evidence, that “America has restored the world’s faith in its ideals”. These “ideals”, which Obama will swear to uphold, have overseen, since 1945, the destruction of 50 governments, including democracies, and 30 popular liberation movements, causing the deaths of countless men, women and children.
None of this was uttered during the election campaign. Had it been allowed, there might even have been recognition that liberalism as a narrow, supremely arrogant, war-making ideology is destroying liberalism as a reality. Prior to Blair’s criminal warmaking, ideology was denied by him and his media mystics. “Blair can be a beacon to the world,” declared the Guardian in 1997. “[He is] turning leadership into an art form.”
Today, merely insert “Obama”. As for historic moments, there is another that has gone unreported but is well under way – liberal democracy’s shift towards a corporate dictatorship, managed by people regardless of ethnicity, with the media as its clichéd façade. “True democracy,” wrote Penn Jones Jr, the Texas truth-teller, “is constant vigilance: not thinking the way you’re meant to think and keeping your eyes wide open at all times.” link
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