PERLE ADMITS IRAQ WAR WAS ILLEGAL

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GUARDIAN, UK - International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted
with astonishment after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle
conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal. In a startling
break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle
told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law
stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal
either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq -
also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of
self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises
the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law
... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this
would have been morally unacceptable.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html

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