Russia to ask UN to rule on the legality of Iraq war

AFP ^ | 03-23-03 | AFP

[Norm640]

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia and other countries will ask the United Nations (news - web sites) to rule whether the US-led war on Iraq (news - web sites) is legal, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov revealed.

"With other states, we will put this question before the UN's legal department. It is very important that these arguments (about the legality of US actions) are confirmed," he told the State Duma lower house of parliament.

"This is the only way that we can use them as a strong weapon," Ivanov added.

"If the UN Security Council describes the US actions as an aggression, the appropriate measures will be taken. But if you or I describe them as aggression it won't achieve anything," the foreign minister said Friday.

"The action has no legal basis and the attempts to justify it by resolution 1441 are not serious," he said.

The United States abandoned its efforts to have the UN Security Council approve military action against Baghdad after apparently failing to gather enough support in the 15-member Council.

The US administration argues that resolution 1441, which passed unanimously in November and threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" if it failed to show it had disarmed its weapons of mass destruction, provides sufficient authority for the war.

US-led forces launched the attacks against Iraq on Thursday

[Norm640]

Ah, the truest form of moral hypocrisy. Putting aside Article 51, US sovereignty, the UN laws we're fighting to uphold, put away all of that, and here's what you get: you get Russia, seat of the former USSR, who always had a seat on the Security Council, who was never questioned on the "legality" of their brutal expansion of empire over eastern Europe, nor of their human rights abuses that killed tens of millions of their own people, a country that has violated current resolutions in giving Iraq technology to defeat us, a government that is arming Iran with the capacity for making nukes, a country that has long been a nuclear amoral supplier for the rest of the world, here we have this nation of ex-commies and atheists "concerned" about the morality of our war with Iraq, which, by the way, is to achieve what the UN never could--disarming Iraq.

Maybe it's about time we question the "legality" of every damn thing Russia is doing, every UN resolution they are skirting, and every civilian's life in Chechnya they are ruining. Hypocrites, pure naked hypocrites. But then, what do you expect from this POS?

[SubMareener]

We have Might, and Right on our side this time. Russia, France and Germany had a chance to choose, and they chose poorly.

[ConservativeMan55]

Hey Guys I am having trouble posting. When I try to post my own post it says....

Proxy Error The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server. The proxy server could not handle the request POST /perl/post_article. Reason: Document contains no data

[Reeses]

Russia selling GPS jammers to Iraq despite UN sanctions is clearly against the UN rules. Enforcing the UN resolutions is not. But who cares, UN is nothing but a debating society.

[The Toad]

Maybe we should point out to the UN that the Russian's have been helping Iraq by violating the sanctions. With the Russian's supplying military parts to Iraq, it's no wonder thay they, like France, said they'd veto any war.

[Question_Assumptions]

Too late. They are already finding weapons shipped from Russia with post-sanction dates on them.

[Kerberos]

Looks like we might be starting to get to the meat of this matter.

[Stopislamnow]

None of these dumbasses gets the new reality.

France, Germany, Russia are reality challenged...China gets it I think.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Did Ivanov bother to get UN approval in 1979?

[dighton]

Bad news, we're not "adhering to the norms of socialist legality."

Sue us.

[stripes1776]

The Russians are worried because the war in Iraq is going too well. They had hope for a quagmire. Instead they got shock and awe.

By the time the UN convenes and does their deliberations, this war will probably be over.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

I hope we ask the U.N. about the legality of Russian firms selling and providing instructions on how to use certain military equipment.

[Travis McGee]

Russia is going to toss a very sharp paper airplane across the UNSC table at us.

~~Yawn~~

[pfflier]

Maybe they should start with the legality of the cruise missiles that they have supplied.

[EaglesUpForever]

There should also be a UN investigation of France's support for Iraqi nuclear programs over the past 20 years. That would prove for all time that they never were qualified for membership in the Security Council, let alone veto power.

First things first, let's get France, Germany, Russia and China out of the Security Council and take on some countries that have not helped with the proliferation of WMD into terrorist hands.

"We will leave the war on terror" was a french threat, and now we find they were on the war on terror, alright, just on the wrong side. Well, they should reap what they have sown.

The US should stay in the UN, but some others need to eat crow based on what we're finding in Iraq. No more "veto power" for those who supported Saddam.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or maybe the soviet made cruise missiles ect. ect

Could the missiles perhaps have not been direct sales, but "retailed" through, say, France?

[Porterville]

Doesn't Britain and US have Veto power?? Oh, thats right, we do.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Yup, two can play that game.

[hchutch]

My take: The things went out via the Russian mob.