Richard Perle Admits Iraq Invasion Was Illegal

by Steve Soto

It's a terrible thing when international law gets in the way of the PNAC cabal's agenda.

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.

Again, Perle totally dismisses the work of IAEA inspectors, and their ability to confirm whether or not Hussein had actually been violating UN resolutions which we now know, had they been left to their jobs, would have found it at least questionable that Saddam was violating the resolutions with regards to WMDs.

But no matter. Perle has done a great service here. He has confirmed that international law has no place in the PNAC agenda.