Why do people call the Iraq war illegal?

Question

I hear all the time that the war in Iraq is illegal, I have not heard why it is illegal. Is it because the UN said we shouldn't go? If thats the case do you think the UN would have agreed for us to go fight the Germans? I'd say no. But I have not heard one good shred of fact for them to say it was "illegal". Can anyone answer that for me?

Answer 1

Actually,It's not an Illegal war......

Thats propoganda.....

Iraq was in violation of 17 UN resolutions that stemmed from the Gulf War.....

Because of these Violations,any Military Action taken by the UN members involved in the drafting of these Resolutions,Would be
Legal under the UN's Charter......

Guess I need to add that People seem to conveniently forget about the violation of 17 UN Resolutions...

Like the guy above me......

Answer 2

Well, first of all, the UN didn't exist when we went to fight the Germans, so that probably isn't relevant.

The war in Iraq violates the UN charter, which the US signed. The UN charter says that you cannot attack another country unless you have been attacked by that country.

Some persons in the US govt have suggested that it is unconstitutional for the Congress to give the President the power to send troops overseas for long periods of time without a declaration of war. This is another potential reason why it would be illegal.

Answer 3

simple: preemptive war is illegal...the reasons for going to war in iraq were based on falsehoods and the US violated numerous treaties they had signed and even authored after WW2. By the way, the UN could not have given a directive on going to war with germany because the UN did not exist during WW2, it was known as the league of nations.

Answer 4

Did the Congress declare a war against that country?

Answer 5

becuase they are stupid commies. the war is legal, pure and simple. gulf war one never ended. we had a conditional cease fire. that condition was violated by hussein when he refused to abide by UN demands that he cooperate with weapons inspectors. Iraq has not been a sovereign nation since 1991. so, we did not invade a sovereign nation at all. we simply reinstated hostilities from a previously declared war. this is also why bush doesn'r need congress to declare war. it was declared in 1991

Answer 6

HOW THE HECK CAN YOU COMPARE A PRESIDENT (WHO HAS A CONFLICT OF INTREST WITH IRAQ) GOING TO WAR FOR 'POSSIBLE' W.M.DS (THAT TURNED OUT TO BE FALSE PRETENSES TO GO TO WAR) AND A REGIME THAT WANTED TO DOMINATE THE WORLD AND CREATE A MASTER RACE!?!?!?

Your being absolutly ridiculous. Your an ignorant idiot and it's pointless to try and talk sense into people like you. Your what's wrong with the world!

Answer 7

Bush and the fiscal conservatives planned it before 9-11

Answer 8

because bush based his invasion on a doctrine of pre-emptive defence.. and hasn't even found the weapons he said existed to justify the pre-emptive invasion

Answer 9

Because it is!

We violated international law by unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation for no reason. We weren't attacked by Iraq! We weren't even attacked by a country!!

We began the UN, and we aren't allowed to conduct a preemptive strike that has gotten us in a stupid war!!!

The Bush administration does a lot of illegal things if you haven't noticed. He thinks he is above the law!

WASHINGTON - The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq violates the basic rules of the United Nations Charter requiring countries to exhaust all peaceful means of maintaining global security before taking military action, and permitting the use of force in self-defense only in response to actual or imminent attack, two U.S. legal groups said Thursday.

The U.N. Security Council's refusal to approve a resolution proposed by the United States, Britain and Spain clarified that the weapons inspection process initiated by Security Council Resolution 1441 last November should have been permitted to continue before military action could be authorized, added The Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) and the Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF).

The two groups, the U.S. affiliates of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), supported an open letter signed by 31 Canadian international law professors released Wednesday that called a U.S. attack against Iraq "a fundamental breach of international law (that) would seriously threaten the integrity of the international legal order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War."

Such an action "would simply return us to an international order based on imperial ambition and coercive force," they added.

The legalities of the U.S. attack on Iraq have sparked considerable debate since Washington, Britain, and Spain decided to pull their proposed resolution from consideration by the Security Council in the face of almost-certain defeat by a majority of members, including the threat of vetoes cast by permanent Council members France and Russia.

By withdrawing the resolution and issuing an ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to leave the country or face attack--demands that have not been included in any Security Council resolution--Washington asserted its sovereign right to self-defense and its intention to enforce previous resolutions, including 1441, which called for Iraqi disarmament.

Some international lawyers, such as Yale University's Ruth Wedgwood, have claimed that the previous resolutions gave Washington adequate legal cover to unilaterally enforce disarmament, and that precedent for circumventing the Security Council was established when Washington and its NATO allies launched their air campaign against Serbia in 1999 without Council authorization.

Another prominent expert, Anne-Marie Slaughter, argued that while technically "illegal," Washington's decision to take military action without Council backing might still be "legitimate."

Also citing the Serbia precedent, Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, argued that Washington could still gain U.N. approval if its forces found "irrefutable evidence" that the Iraqi regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"Even without such evidence, the United States and its allies can justify their intervention if the Iraqi people welcome their coming and if they turn immediately back to the United Nations to help rebuild the country," she wrote in the New York Times.

"Even for international lawyers, insisting on formal legality in this case may be counterproductive," she said, arguing that supporters of international law should accept that the United Nations is a "political institution as well as a legal one."

But LCNP President Peter Weiss strongly denounced that reasoning, calling it "shocking beyond belief, coming from the current president of the American Society of International Law."

LCNP and WSLF argued that Washington could not use the right of self-defense to start military action unless it was actually attacked or was threatened by an immediate and unavoidable attack. In the absence of those circumstances, according to WSLF Program Director Andrew Lichterman, only the Security Council may approve such a U.S. attack.

"Because Iraq has not attacked any state, nor is there any showing whatever of an imminent attack by Iraq, self-defense cannot justify U.S. war on Iraq," he said.

The U.S. administration's attempt to expand the concept of self-defense to authorize preventive attacks against states based on potential future threats "would destabilize the present system of U.N. Charter restraints on use of force," Lichterman added.