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LAWYERS from British and US organisations are looking at the possibility of an international inquiry into war crimes that their governments might have committed in Iraq. "We want to establish regular and impartial procedures to establish whether war crimes have been committed," said Phil Shiner, of the British group Public Interest Lawyers. Shiner spoke at a news conference where Michael Ratner, president of the US Centre for Constitutional Rights, warned that the principle of "victor's justice" was legally unacceptable. "It is not only Saddam's crimes that have to be examined," he said today. The regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein...

SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said on Monday U.S. charges that Syria was developing chemical weapons and has offered refuge to Iraqi leaders should be addressed in the United Nations Security Council. Speaking during a visit to the Dominican Republic, Chretien said it was possible that nations, including Syria, had weapons of mass destruction. But he said U.N. Security Council resolution 1441, the 2002 resolution that threatened Iraq (news - web sites) with "serious consequences" if it did not scrap weapons of mass destruction, clearly established the procedure to follow in such cases. Chretien, a steadfast...

Paris (CNSNews.com) - France, Germany and Russia held a summit meeting in the Russian city of St. Petersburg over the weekend to find ways to play a role in the reconstruction of Iraq after their opposition to an armed conflict strained relations with the United States. After the meeting, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder all said that the United Nations must play a role in the future of Iraq. "The main thing now is to restore civilian life and to resolve humanitarian problems. We believe all these issues should be resolved under...

Saddam's regime falls in Baghdad; UN falls in New York. Good!By Richard PerleMonday, Apr 14, 2003,Page 9 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. His Baathist government, however, will not go alone. In a fitting irony, the UN is going down with him. Perhaps the entire UN will not disappear. Those parts devoted to "good works" (ie, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies or those that fight AIDs and malaria or protect children) will remain. The looming chatterbox on New York's East River will also continue to bleat. What died with the UN Security Council's unwillingness to sanction...

Apr. 13, 2003 France, Lebanon agree on need for U.N. role in Iraq By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIRUT, Lebanon The United Nations has a role to play in restoring security in Iraq and in the political, economic and humanitarian development of the country, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said Sunday. "It is not logical or acceptable for the role of the United Nations (in Iraq) to be confined to humanitarian aspects because in the coming stage, which will witness the reconstruction of Iraq, it will not be possible to separate between the political and military reality and the humanitarian reality," Lahoud...

<p>TWO WEEKS into the Iraq war, naysayers complained that the invasion was going too slow. War planning was flawed. There weren't enough troops. Where were the cheering Iraqis? Why wasn't there more "shock and awe" in "shock and awe?"</p> <p>Then the regime imploded, Saddam Hussein's statues tumbled. As war-front successes mounted, the Carp-at-Bush Patrol needed to find some deficiency, real or perceived, to keep the news from being too good. Before victory was declared, the constant critics had started lamenting how the Bush administration is botching reconstruction.</p>

The postwar temptations that President Bush must resist. THE UNITED NATIONS is a temptation that's easy to resist. It won't enforce its own resolutions. Libya, a police state, chairs its human rights commission. It provides an arena where France, with its unearned Security Council veto, has enough leverage to pursue a campaign to restrain the power--and good works--of the United States. So when British prime minister Tony Blair, at the Belfast summit last week, pressed for a major role for the U.N. in administering postwar Iraq, President Bush had no trouble saying no. But there are other temptations Bush will...

Glad to hear that George Bush is still lukewarm on the United Nations. It appears that the age of bending over for this crowd of quasi-legitimate, whining third-rate bullies is fast drawing to a close. The sooner the better, for the Third World especially, since you and I can dodge the UN quite well thanks. So to George W., I say, let them hand out food and organize medical aid. Anything else? You do it, you're competent. And for heaven's sake, if there are Canadians begging to be included, like I don't know, say, Stephen Lewis, how about a nice...

With the United Nations' incompetence prominently displayed by its bollixing of the Iraqi situation, some have begun to dismiss the international labyrinth as an irrelevant debating society. The dilatory gyrations concerning Baghdad's reign of terror represented its most recent, well-publicized foray into do-nothingism but were hardly atypical of the multinational body's inactions. It's hemming and hawing over Saddam Hussein 's barbarism and illegalities for the past 12 years may have lead all reasoned observers to question its value. Still irrelevance suggest harmlessness, and the UN has proven itself to be anything but harmless. While it jabbered and postured for 12...

GAZA CITY, April 11 (AFP) - The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) executive committee called for "an immediate end to the war in Iraq and its occupation," and "the right for the Iraqi people to decide their fate," in a statement released Friday. "It is of utmost importance that all brotherly Arab countries, the Arab league and its affiliates help guarantee the territorial integrity of Iraq, its independence and reconstruction so that its people can control their own lives," it added. It said the United Nations should not only confine itself to a humanitarian role but also ensure the "protection of...

MADRID, Spain, Apr 11, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Friday that security must be restored to Iraq, and reiterated that the United Nations must have a central role in reconstruction. "The most urgent matter in Iraq today is security, before undertaking the challenge of the political, administrative, social and economic reconstruction," de Villepin said after a meeting with Spanish counterpart Ana Palacio in Madrid. "Iraq has to be a safe country again," he said. Law and order has collapsed with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in the face of the U.S.-led...

ST.PETERSBURG, Russia, Apr 11, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday welcomed the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government but said the U.S.-led war on Iraq had undermined international law and the very concept of sovereignty. Speaking between meetings with his two main allies in the opposition to the war on Iraq, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac, Putin called for the leading role in settling the conflict to be restored to the United Nations. "Obviously the toppling of a tyrannical regime was a plus. But the human losses, the humanitarian catastrophe, the...

We have never been so alone. In taking the United States to war, President Bush chose to leave the United Nations and international legitimacy behind in his drive to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. The road to war against Iraq was long but by signaling at the outset there was only one acceptable outcome and by ramming his initiative through the United Nations, Bush made the international body irrelevant even as he sought to label it so for not acting in the manner he found acceptable. Using harsh rhetoric toward traditional European allies, fanning the fear created by the...

UNITED NATIONS -- Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri, the first Iraqi official to concede defeat in the war, said he is leaving his post because he doesn't want to work under a U.S.-backed transitional government. "I am leaving because I don't think there is a possibility for me to work as I want from a country that is militarily invading Iraq, destroying, ravaging and killing," Al-Douri told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel in an interviews broadcast Friday. Al-Douri said pressure from the U.S. would stop him from working "with full freedom" at the U.N. He did not say what kind...

PARIS, Apr 11, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Europe's three staunchest anti-war critics begin a two-day summit meeting in St. Petersburg late Friday to cobble a common position regarding Iraq's post-war reconstruction, and their own rehabilitation on the world stage. Among the three players -- leaders from France, Germany and Russia -- the position of French President Jacques Chirac may be the most delicate, as he faces the brunt of U.S. criticism for defying Washington and growing post-war doubts within his own party. Tellingly, as Moscow and Washington seek to patch up their differences -- aided by good...

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 10 (IPS) - The United States, which went to battle with Iraq by short-circuiting the United Nations, has magnanimously promised a ''vital role'' for the world body in post-war Iraq. But the conciliatory gesture by U.S. President George W. Bush - with a promise to return to the United Nations for approval of its plans - is being viewed with a degree of scepticism by U.N. diplomats and U.S. academics. ''I'll believe when I see it,'' an Arab diplomat told IPS, expressing cynicism at Bush's promise to consult the world body, which he once described as potentially...

The United States plans to start a new round of diplomacy with the United Nations now that Saddam Hussein's regime has been driven from power. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the U.S. will seek new resolutions from the Security Council regarding management details in post-war Iraq. "We need an endorsement of the authority, an endorsement of what we're doing in order to begin selling oil in due course, and in order to make sure that the humanitarian supplies continue to flow in the oil-for-food program," Powell told the paper. Diplomatic relations...

Will President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair never learn? Won't they both please stop muttering all the usual ritual platitudes about involving the United Nations in postwar Iraq. ``We are committed to working with international institutions including the United Nations,'' Bush said yesterday following his latest round of talks with Blair. Blair added, ``There will be a vital role for the United Nations in the reconstruction of Iraq, but the key is that Iraq, in the end, should be governed by the Iraqi people.'' And the sorry fact of the matter is that the deeper the...

The Bush administration made it clearer than ever today, in sketching its vision for a democratically run Iraq, that it sees a decidedly secondary role for the United Nations in that country when the shooting is over. "The U.N. can be an important partner," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee. But he quickly added that he hoped the international organization could play "a much more positive role in the future" than it has in the past. "And I think there's reason to think that it can and will," Mr. Wolfowitz went on. "But it can't...

Iraqi Ambassador Meets U.N. Chief By EDITH M. LEDERER .c The Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iraq's U.N. ambassador met privately Thursday with Secretary-General Kofi Annan but refused to talk about his immediate plans. Mohammed Al-Douri had declared ``the game is over'' on Wednesday and became the first Iraqi official to concede defeat in the U.S.-led war. He expressed hope that the Iraqi people will now be able to live in peace. But Al-Douri wasn't talking to the media Thursday, refusing to respond to all questions about his talks with the secretary-general, his future, and the war. ``I am...