Tag: war of aggression

Crossposted from Antemedius

Ray McGovern is a retired CIA officer. McGovern was employed under seven US presidents for over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. McGovern was born and raised in the Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University, received an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham, a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University, and graduated from Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

In this interview McGovern talks with Real News Network CEO Paul Jay about the paper trail on the Iraq war, as revealed in the British “Downing Street Memo”.

Wikipedia defines a war of aggression as a military conflict waged absent the justification of self-defense. Waging such a war of aggression is a crime under the customary international law. It is generally agreed by scholars in international law that the military actions of the Nazi regime in World War II in its search for so-called “Lebensraum” are characteristic of a war of aggression.

San Diego’s Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor and president of the National Lawyers Guild Marjorie Cohn in a 2004 Truthout article contextualized a little more bluntly with:

Following the Holocaust, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg called the waging of aggressive war “essentially an evil thing . . . to initiate a war of aggression . . . is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Former UK diplomat Carne Ross, who was Britain’s leading expert on Iraq at the United Nations for four years before the war and had quit his job after giving secret evidence to the UK’s 2004 Butler inquiry into the use of intelligence, is now urging a full inquiry into the legality  of the 2003 US led invasion according to UK newspapers yesterday and this morning.

From BBC News Thursday:

A full public inquiry into the decision to invade Iraq is needed because “a lot of facts still have to come to light”, a former diplomat has told MPs.

Carne Ross said it was “disgraceful” of ministers to “pretend” the Butler and Hutton inquiries told the full story.

…

“A lot of decision-making, a lot of facts have still to come to light in the run up to this war, which should come to light, which the public deserves to know.”

Asked what this information was, he said he was “happy” to let his evidence to the Butler inquiry “stand as my view”.

The Guardian corroborates the story Friday morning with:

A former diplomat at the centre of events in the run-up to the Iraq war revealed yesterday that the government has a “paper trail” that could reveal new information about the legality of the invasion.

Carne Ross, who was a first secretary at the United Nations in New York for the Foreign Office until 2004, told MPs: “A lot of facts about the run-up to this war have yet to come to light which should come to light and which the public deserves to know.” There were also assessments by the joint intelligence committee which had not been disclosed, Ross told the Commons public administration select committee.

He told the inquiry that the intelligence made it “very clear” that Saddam Hussein did not pose a significant threat to the UK, as was being claimed at the time by ministers, and that tougher enforcement of sanctions could have brought his regime down.