Denis Halliday
The former head of the U.N.'s humanitarian program in Iraq says an American invasion would be an international crime -- and would make the U.S. even less safe.

In the U.S., there are a number of issues not being discussed. One of those is international law. The U.S. somehow doesn't believe that international law applies to this great democracy, to this great empire. We've seen Mr. Bush reject various aspects of international law in the past year. That's a failure on the part of Washington to understand that the U.S. is in fact subordinate to the charter, to the declaration of human rights, to the Geneva Conventions and protocols -- all of which would protect Iraq, a sovereign state and member of the United Nations -- from further harassment, attacks and killings by the United States.

[What's missing is] respect for international law and an awareness that this is not an empire -- that "might" is no longer "right" in the year 2002, and that Mr. Bush does not have any God-given right to attack Iraq or its people without consultation with the Security Council. There is no legitimate way for the U.S. to wage war again on the people of Iraq. That's one huge issue that's missing, in my view.
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thanks to Lia Bulaong at American Samizdat