Who is in Iraq?
While the coalition of “the willing” in Iraq has turned into the coalition of the leaving (troops from Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Japan and New Zealand have already wisely left), three countries are set to increase numbers in this immoral occupation and illegal war: the US, Australia and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The US and Australian governments commit this folly with no credible excuse, Georgia does so because it wants to join NATO.
Even the Coalition’s most significant partner, the British, only two weeks or so ago announced it would reduce its troop strength from 7100 to about 5000 by the end of the year.
Both Poland and Denmark are pulling their few hundred troop presence out, and South Korea says it will cut its troops in half by April.
COALITION OCCUPATION FORCES IN IRAQ
US -132,000
UK – 7,100 (down to 5000 by 2008)
South Korea – 3,200 (to halve by April)
Poland – 900 (pulling out)
Georgia – 800-850
Australia – 900
Romania – 600-865
Denmark – 460 (pulling out)
El Salvador – 380
Bulgaria – 150
Sources: Brookings Institution; Globalsecurity.org; media reports
Amid all this, lest we forget that Iraqis want an end to the occupation. Every serious and credible pollster records that the will of the majority of Iraqis is for US troops to withdraw and go home. If George Bush truly respected democracy rather than merely paying lip-service to it, his administration and the neocon cabal that run it would heed their wishes. We might then be able to salvage the situation so it is just a disaster for the Iraqis to handle rather than a quagmire made worse by the day. In fact, we know this exposes his empty rhetoric as a complete sham, as it was from the outset.
The Zogby Poll in 2005 found that 82 percent of Iraqi Sunnis and 69 percent of Shiites want US troops withdrawn. Moreover, as Frank J. Menetrez details, it was undertaken one month before the January 2005 elections. This is significant because the elections were “won by a Shiite coalition whose electoral platform included a plank calling for the withdrawal of US troops.” Menetrez continues:
In August 2005, a secret survey commissioned by the British Ministry of Defense found that 82 percent of Iraqis were “strongly opposed” to the presence of foreign troops in Iraq. (We don’t know how many of the remaining 18 percent were merely “opposed,” because only a few of the poll’s findings were leaked to the press.)
Hi Ann!
What makes a war illegal (or legal)?
-Jack
Hi Jack,
Thanks for posing the question. It contravenes international law as codified in the UN Charter (last time I checked, the US was a part of the UN!). The usually diplomatic Kofi Annan also felt it warranted a declaration of its illegality, stating explicitly and clearly: “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal.”
Among international law experts and practitioners, the overwhelming jurisprudential consensus is that the war is illegal under international law and illegal moreover, over its three phases: the invasion, conquest and occupation. This is affirmed in a document drafted by the International Commission of International Law Jurists advising of its illegality as a war of aggression and that commencement of hostilities would constitute prosecutable war crimes.
Whatever UNSC resolutions Saddam Hussein was in breach of, this did not warrant an invasion of Iraq. Should we invade Israel for thumbing its nose at a record number of resolutions and virtually imprisoning the Palestinians?
The notion of pre-emptive self-defense is a furphy (self-defence? how was Iraq threatening?) and by not gathering the requisite international consensus as it did, at least, with Bush Senior, the largely unilateral action also threatens the efficacy of the international system. There is ample evidence, moreover, that any support was coerced rather than “willing”.
There was no UNSC resolution authorising the war. Even war hawk Richard Perle has conceded the invasion was illegal.
Here is a good compilation of links for both sides of the argument (not too many on the legal side, though!)
Here is another one.