11/20 War critics astonished as US hawk Perle admits invasion was illegal

[grasswire]

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday 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 Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George 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-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html

[pinniped]

1. Send them all to the Hague! NOW!

BULLshyt and Co. has got some splaining to do.

[radfringe]

2. sorry for being a skeptic

but I expect that in a day or two there will be a retraction or correction saying that Perle was quoted incorrectly or his statement was taken out of context

the spin machine is churning...and I find it hard to believe that someone who is snuggled this close in bed with baghdad-bush would make this admission

If anything comes out about the illegality of the invasion I would expect it to emerge through a lower level official who is speaking in the condition of anonymity or leaked documents

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=229566&mesg_id=229566