Iraq war illegal, says Annan

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led
invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.
news.bbc.co.uk...

In the original opinion, which Blair released Thursday after key portions were leaked to Channel Four News here, Goldsmith told Blair that the language of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, passed in November 2002 to bring new pressure on Iraq, was ambiguous on the question of war. "I remain of the opinion that the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorize the use of force," he wrote.

Without such a new resolution, Goldsmith added, Blair would need "strong factual grounds" and "hard evidence" that Iraq had failed to comply with previous resolutions requiring it to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction and allow stringent monitoring by U.N. weapons inspectors.
www.washingtonpost.com...

Iraq Agrees to Destroy Al Samoud Missiles

Iraq agreed in principle Thursday to destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles, two days before a UN deadline. Word of the agreement came as chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Baghdad's disarmament efforts had been "very limited so far."
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China Daily February 28, 2003)

NEW YORK — Twenty engines from banned Iraqi missiles were found in a Jordanian scrap yard with other equipment that could be used for weapons of mass destruction, a U.N. official said, raising new security questions about Iraq's scrap metal sales since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Acting chief United Nations inspector Demetrius Perricos revealed the discoveries to the U.N. Security Council in a closed-door briefing Wednesday.
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Mr. Perricos suggested that the interim Iraqi government, which will assume sovereignty of the country on June 30, may want to reconsider policies for exporting scrap metal that apparently began in mid-2003. The sales are regulated by the U.S.-led coalition.

At first, Iraq told UNSCOM that it had produced an estimated 250 tons of tabun and 812 tons of sarin. In 1995, Iraq changed its estimates and reported it had produced only 210 tons of tabun and 790 tons of sarin. Thus, it is still uncertain how much tabun and sarin Iraq actually manufactured.

Nerve Gas: VX

Iraq appears to have turned its research efforts toward VX nerve gas in 1985. VX is the most toxic of all known chemical warfare agents. Its effects on the body are similar to those of sarin and tabun, paralyzing the nervous system and causing convulsions and rapid death when contact occurs. A very small amount on the skin (10 milligrams) is enough to kill a man. VX is an oily liquid that may persist in the environment for weeks or longer, thereby posing a major skin absorption risk.

Iraq admitted that it had six or seven research teams working on VX, and production is known to have taken place in 1987-88 and possibly until 1990. A team of U.N. experts concluded that there was clear evidence that Iraq had the capability to produce the agent because the Muthanna State Establishment, as early as 1984, had done industrial scale organophosphorous synthesis, a process much more difficult than that required to produce VX. One plant, in Dhia'a, was reconfigured to produce necessary components for VX by 1988. Iraq also admitted producing and procuring vast amounts of precursor agents for VX, including 58 tons of the chemical choline, a key VX ingredient. Iraq claimed that nearly all of its precursors had been destroyed by aerial bombing during the first Gulf War, and that what remained was secretly destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNSCOM estimated that by 1991, Iraq could have produced between 50 and 100 tons of VX gas. By 1998, UNSCOM estimated that Iraq was capable of producing 200 tons. Iraq at first told UNSCOM that it had only produced 240 kilograms of VX, but in 1996 admitted that it had produced 3.9 tons. Iraq provided documents stating that 2.4 tons of VX were produced in 1988 and the remainder in 1990. Iraq explained this low volume by claiming that it had scaled-up all its chemical weapons processes at al-Muthanna except VX, a claim UNSCOM rejected as incompatible with Iraq's massive R&D efforts. Iraq also claimed that it later abandoned the VX project because the gas was of poor quality and was unstable. Iraq never backed up its claims with verifiable evidence, so the total quantity of VX that Iraq produced is not known.

Is it really true that Saddam Hussein had no "stockpiles" of weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invaded in March 2003?
Not exactly - at least not if one counts the 500 tons of uranium that the Iraqi dictator kept stored at his al Tuwaitha nuclear weapons development plant.

The press hasn't made much of Saddam's 500-ton uranium stockpile, downplaying the story to such an extent that most Americans aren't even aware of it.

But it's been reported - albeit in a by-the-way fashion - by the New York Times and a handful of other media outlets. And one of Saddam's nuclear scientists, Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, admitted to the BBC earlier this year, "We had 500 tons of yellow cake [uranium] in Baghdad."

Surely 500 tons of anything qualifies as a "stockpile." And press reports going back more than a decade give no indication that weapons inspectors had any idea the Iraqi dictator had amassed such a staggering amount of nuke fuel until the U.S. invaded.

That's when the International Atomic Energy Agency was finally able to take a full inventory, and suddenly the 500-ton figure emerged.

Still, experts say Saddam's massive uranium stockpile was largely benign.

Largely? Well, except for the 1.8 tons of uranium that Saddam had begun to enrich. The U.S. Energy Department considered that stockpile so dangerous that it mounted an unprecedented airlift operation four months ago to remove the enriched uranium stash from al Tuwaitha.

Originally posted by GlobalDisorder
After he invaded, it came to truth taht the evidence was fabricated and SERIOUSLY flawed, and that the Government KNEW of this!

Originally posted by GlobalDisorder
the USA invaded another country WITHOUT Just cause.
The USA invaded another country on lies.

Originally posted by GlobalDisorder
weeks PRIOR to the invasion Saddam openly declared he had NO WMD, he wanted formal discussions with president bush.

Originally posted by GlobalDisorder
the usa found NO EVIDENCE of any terror attacks being thuoght of against the USA

Actually, Saddam Hussein knew plenty about terrorism. In essence, he owned and operated a full-service general store for global terrorists, complete with cash, diplomatic aid, safe haven, training, and even medical attention. Such assistance violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 687. The results not only broke international law, but also were deadly, as this chart demonstrates:7
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“President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al-Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000,” Aziz, announced at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported the next day.
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Aziz simply echoed the policy his boss established one week earlier. As Saddam Hussein put it on Iraqi TV on March 4, 2002:

"We are glad of the Istishhadiyyah [suicide] and heroic spirit of the Palestinian people. By Allah, what the Palestinian people does is beyond my expectations…”

Originally posted by GlobalDisorder
im stil ltrying to find a reasonable point here with JUSTIFIES this war?

Give me some.

all your doing is attacking what im saying, the post is called
IS THIS AN ILLEGIAL WAR

Originally posted by GlobalDisorder
You start telling me why it is just and legal, AGAINST his reasons for going to war!