Dancing On A Pinhead

The BBC follows up yesterday's interview with Kofi Annan, in which he said the invasion of Iraq was "illegal" with a more detailed look at the legal nicities involved:

Resolution 1441, passed on 8 November 2002, warned Iraq that there would be "serious consequences" if it did not comply with UN demands over its suspected weapons programmes.

Mr Annan said it should have been left to the UN Security Council, in a second resolution, to determine what those consequences were.

As you may remember, the US and its war-mongering allies tried desperately to get a further UN resolution, but not so deperately that they would actually succeed within their own mega-urgent timeframe (a UN-backed invasion would have made it very hard for Bush & Co to pillage the country and maintain US military bases there for generations to come). What Bush really wanted was just a UN rubber stamp for the US takeover. No wonder he has nothing to say about Annan's comments today (but note that Bush is due to address the UN General Assembly next week - should be interesting).

By contrast, the British government relied on the advice of Attorney General Lord Goldsmith:

He said the original Resolution 678 from 1990, which allowed for "all necessary means" to end Iraq's occupation of Kuwait and "restore international peace and security" in the region, still applied.

It had been, he said, "revived" by Resolution 687 from 1991, which demanded that Iraq disarm. Since Resolution 1441 stated that Iraq was in breach of Resolution 687, the attorney general argued, there was authority to use force.

Lord Goldsmith's detailed reasoning has never been published or even revealed to cabinet. Why not?

You may well ask!

UPDATE: Ironically, the killer blow to the pro-war "arguments" (aka "lies") comes from the new "Sultan Of Iraq", John Negroponte himself, who, as the US Ambassador to the United Nations at the time, gathered support for Resolution 1441 by loudly insisting that it was not UN authorisation for US military action.

"This resolution contains no hidden triggers and no automaticity with respect to the use of force," he said.