The illegal war before the illegal war

RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war
Michael Smith

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.



The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make “regime change” in Iraq legal.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that “the US had already begun ‘spikes of activity’ to put pressure on the regime”.

The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did.

During 2000, RAF aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone over Iraq dropped 20.5 tons of bombs from a total of 155 tons dropped by the coalition, a mere 13%. During 2001 that figure rose slightly to 25 tons out of 107, or 23%.

However, between May 2002 and the second week in November, when the UN Security Council passed resolution 1441, which Goldsmith said made the war legal, British aircraft dropped 46 tons of bombs a month out of a total of 126.1 tons, or 36%.

By October, with the UN vote still two weeks away, RAF aircraft were dropping 64% of bombs falling on the southern no-fly zone.

Tommy Franks, the allied commander, has since admitted this operation was designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.

It was not until November 8 that the UN security council passed resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with “serious consequences” for failing to co-operate with the weapons inspectors.

The briefing paper prepared for the July meeting — the same document that revealed the prime minister’s agreement during a summit with President George W Bush in April 2002 to back military action to bring about regime change — laid out the American war plans.

They opted on August 5 for a “hybrid plan” in which a continuous air offensive and special forces operations would begin while the main ground force built up in Kuwait ready for a full-scale invasion.

The Ministry of Defence figures, provided in response to a question from Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, show that despite the lack of an Iraqi reaction, the air war began anyway in September with a 100-plane raid.

The systematic targeting of Iraqi air defences appears to contradict Foreign Office legal guidance appended to the leaked briefing paper which said that the allied aircraft were only “entitled to use force in self-defence where such a use of force is a necessary and proportionate response to actual or imminent attack from Iraqi ground systems”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--

Downing street is sure full of holes Henry I wouldn't want to buy a boat from that place :P

I wonder if Georgie is getting mad at Tony for the truth continuing to come out?

Is deliberate provocation against the Geneva Conventions? I'm not sure. I think it gets minor mention in there some place.

I suspect you're right, Derry, but it's certainly against the US constitution for Bush to start a war before Congress has authorised it. As you know, Congress didn't do so until October. I'm sure there's a whole host of patriots queueing up to call Bush on that particularly serious abuse of power. If not, there should be.

I would imagine the legal problem here would be if Saddam was in any violation if the cease fire agreement.

The major issue is that Bush and Blair broke international and domestic laws while misleading their own people in order to launch an illegal war, Jay.

Saddam violating the cease fire agreement! No!

He was abiding by all of the UN restrictions and was working towards a peaceful solution. He is a great loving leader... a hero to to all oppressed nations. He loved his people. He was such a kind and gentle leader.

He did nothing wrong.

The ILLEGAL WAR BEFORE THE ILLEGAL WAR???? Where did you come up with this? Do you live in a cave? The US/UK air raids were part of the 1991 cease fire agreement from the first war with Iraq. For over 10 years Saddam was violating the agreement by painting US/UK planes patroling in the no fly zone with radar from anti aircraft missle batteries. Even in the Clinton years the attacks took place on a regular basis in response to the radar which was Saddam violating his own agreement to the cease fire. It happened so many times that it barely had a foot note on the second page of the news paper. When George Jr. took over as president, he steped up the attacks even before 9/11. This too was in the local papers. Since many of the radar sites were remote and unoccupied they began hittiing the command and control centers trying to put a stop to Saddams illegal activity. The US/UK attacks were limited to the radar, missles and command centers, nothing more. Since this was in the news on an allmost daily basis, how do you get a conspiracy out of that, and how do you figure that it was illegal?

The second part of my questions have to do with the so called illegal war. Just what law was broken, by who, and why has no one been charged an prosecuted for braking the law? ELK

It is illegal to be the aggressor in a war unless the country you are attacking presents a clear and immediate danger, Elk. Iraq didn't meet those criteria, which is why the UN told you you couldn't attack. You attacked anyway, so you were clearly breaking the Geneva Conventions. Your country helped to write those conventions. Your president at the time said that starting a war was the biggest war crime of them all.

May I ask Derry McKinney if war is illegal
if used to stop the carnage in Ruwanda, or Yugoslavia, where no imminent danger to your own country is present?

Would war be illegal if the destruction of Dafur in the Sudan is stopped?

Would war be illegal if it prevents a despot from becoming a Kim of North Korea?

Is imminent danger a matter that can even be proven in a court of law?

Will that court decide in a speedy course of time to avoid the great sin of exposing a great many people to danger if they don't strike first?

Is evidence ever complete enough where a decision can be automatic without the use of a judge?

And isn't that why we need a judge because the nature of evidence is never complete enough, yet the issue contains enough peril to require a proper decision?

Isn't it a fact that police can do nothing to protect you prior to the imminent crime, that the crime must be committed first and if you don't survive the case is moot?

Can we possibly weigh all of these questions in such a perfect balance that no mistakes can be made?

Can a government ever weigh properly the perfect balance of civil liberties and security, and do not both need each other in order to enjoy and survive?

Don't all of these questions contain a greater truth than any possible answer we can give, and yet we must try to answer them all the while honoring the ultimate authority these questions hold over us all ?

These questions are submitted sincerely in hopes of dashing all the certitude of Americans or of the world

You can ask all you want, Jimmy. You should go look it up for yourself though because you aren't going to like my answer.

Your certainty on those questions is appalling.

I respectfully submit to your perusal that I find you to be an amazingly intelligent combination of large amounts of healthy skepticism and equally large amounts of gullible belief systems culminating in a certainty that should scare not only me, but you.

I'm hardly any better.

But I no longer believe so surely in any point of view and so I've decided to rock a chair for comfort in my growing schizophrenia, only to be inspired by decreasing moments of clarity to play the devil's advocate.

Do you not believe the questions of the day trump any possible answer?

Do you not believe the questions will remain after all of us answer them?

I believe that when somebody breaks a law, as George Bush and his cabinet have done more than once, they should tried for it.

The law is clear, Jim. There is no grey area. They said they were going to war, they gave their evidence, and they were told their evidence sucked. They went to war anyway and have now shown why their evidence sucked so bad...it ws a lie.

When Kofi Annan was badgered by the press into saying that the nvasion was illegal, suddenly Oil for Food became a big deal. A witch hunt was launched. The US had known about the corruption all along though, they had complete oversight of every transaction. That didn't keep Georgie from extending the program during the US occupation though, because it was working in spite of the flaws and corruption. If it was still in place there would be fewer hungry Iraqis and more food too. It wasn't until he had a score to settle with Annan that the screams of corruption started.

The rest of SC council isn't going to go after the US. That would leave them open to being charged for their crimes.

But you can sit there and play your little moral equivalency games. You can pretend that there are no answers, or that questions are somehow better. Your president and his cabinet are war criminals. Your military is out of people. Your military and your intelligence agencies are torturing people.

Have a nice night in your rocking chair. Maybe you should spend it asking yourself some hard questions about your own morality.

Well said.

I don't intend moral equivalency. I just wanted you to take those questions simply as asked.

I don't intend any agenda on Iraq and am quite suspicious of our language deficient President.

Did you see his latest speech stumble? He says Amnesty International is informed by all the malcontents from Guantanamo and that they are "dis-assembling." He explains to the press that "dis-assembling" means "lies."

My President doesn't know that the word "dissemble" means to lie and "dis-assemble" is what we did to Iraq.

Jon Stewart on the Comedy Show shared that with us.

But you really did not honor those questions, and you don't have to.

And yes you should be angry and I will go to my rocking chair to claim a false sense of calm.

As stated, the leaked memo was first reported in The Sunday Times newspaper, hardly a source renowned for reproducing groundless cave paintings. You can read the article, and the memo, for yourself.

Here's another, much earlier, from those Neanderthal at The Guardian:

Britain and US step up bombing in Iraq

Ministry of Defence reveals 300% rise in ordnance dropped over southern no-fly zone

Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday December 4, 2002


"The total amount of bombs dropped by British and American aircraft on targets in southern Iraq has increased dramatically over the past few months, in a clear indication that the no-fly zone is being used to destroy the country's air defence systems in anticipation of an all-out attack.
Ordnance dropped on southern Iraq in response to threats has increased by 300% since March this year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Defence today in response to questions from the Liberal Democrat spokesman on foreign affairs, Menzies Campbell.

The total tonnage of ordnance released over Iraq between March 1 and November 13 this year was 126.4 tonnes. This is an average of nearly 15 tonnes a month - a 60% increase over last year.

For every threat detected in April and May 2002, about one third of a tonne of bombs was dropped on Iraq; between September and November, every threat was met with an average of 1.3 tonnes.

Ordnance weighing 0.3 tonnes was dropped in April, a figure which rose dramatically to more than 54 tonnes in September.

Whitehall officials have admitted privately that the "no-fly" patrols, conducted by RAF and US aircraft from bases in Kuwait, are designed to weaken Iraq's air defence systems and have nothing to do with their stated original purpose of defending the marsh Arabs and the Sh'ia population of southern Iraq.

"The figures require further explanation. It appears that there has been a marked increase in the destructive power of the bombs dropped while the number of recorded threats has remained about the same", Mr Campbell said yesterday.

He added: "The inference is that these operations have little to do with humanitarian purposes but are being carried out to soften up Iraq air defence systems. There must be a risk that escalation of this kind could provoke wider military action at a time when the inspectors still appear to be able to carry out their work."

Washington has said that the Iraqi response to the patrols - for example, by locking radar on to the aircraft, could amount to a "material breach" of the UN resolution mandating the weapons inspectors now in Iraq.

However, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has distanced himself from the Bush administration, making it clear that Britain separates the issue of the no-fly zones from the UN inspectors and UN demands for Iraq to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. The southern no-fly zone patrols are not covered by a UN resolution.

In recent weeks British and US pilots have been aiming at a wider range of targets, including communications systems, covering a larger area. British military sources say they are concerned in particular about Iraq's fibre-optic communications network linking Baghdad's military command and control centres with the rest of the country.

Last month Britain and America stepped up the hidden air war over Iraq, with RAF fighters based in Saudi Arabia supporting US navy attack aircraft in practice bombing runs on Iraqi targets.

US navy Super Hornets from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which is in the Gulf, carried out mock attacks on airfields, control towers, and other military sites.

The New York Times reported American commanders as saying that the aircraft were "acquainting themselves" with targets they may be called on to attack and were being supported by RAF aircraft."

Ug.

Who really believes in illegal wars? The concept is crazy.


I sure hope all you lefties where all up in arms when the USSR was sweeping the planet away, or when China decided to claim ancient territorial lands, but I doubt it.

While many of us did NOT agree with America's "pre-emptive" action,the ugly deed is done. And we have daily huge numbers of civilian deaths,to say nothing of American deaths(and an unusually high number of military suicides).
The question is...where does Iraq go from here?It seems to me that with its' very porous borders,Iraq will be a magnet for every anti-American nut on the globe and American troops are going to be very occupied in Iraq for a long time to come.

"As stated, the leaked memo was first reported in The Sunday Times newspaper, hardly a source renowned for reproducing groundless cave paintings. You can read the article, and the memo, for yourself.

Here's another, much earlier, from those Neanderthal at The Guardian"


What I am saying is: That it was not a leak. It was widely reported from the very begining of the increased bombings. Also that the increased activity was leagle under the cease fire agreement pretaining to the NO FLY ZONE. If this action had benefits that helped in the later war, so be it, even if it was planned. ELK

The leak was the purpose for the increase in bombings, not the bombings themselves, Elk.

Silly Jay, the USSR was looking out for all proletariats.

Has Jay been possessed by the dark soul of John Bolton?

That's right. In much the same way as the US is looking out for democracy.

Thats correct Henry, thats why you were never invaded by the Soviet Union.

Don't tell me you still buy that Cold War propaganda, ITN? Man, McCarthyism went out of style so long ago. I really hate this retro stuff.

Why don't you pose that argument to citizens from the ex-Eastern Bloc?

A lot of them are longing for stable days of the USSR too, ITN...looking back at the past with rose-coloured glasses.

I really hate this retro thing.

Yes, some are. Especially the older generation. I've read about that. Transitioning into freedom is a very hard thing to do.

Those old folks (you excluded ITN) still go on about the Nazis....listen to CBC world radio late at night. You'll be rather surprised at what you hear from over there....

It's not just the old folks, it's a lot of the young people too. Kind of like the disco revival.

I really hate this retro thing.

I certainly hope you decide to come to NY