UN, International Law and Iraq

On January 15th a reader responded to a letter I had written to a small local paper in which I claim that the US has already begun its war on Iraq. I will not respond to most of the reader's points, except by suggesting that he return to my Jan. 13th letter and reread it with some attention to its content. One point I do want to answer is the reader's statement that Iraq has attacked patrols monitoring the UN-sanctioned "no-fly zones."

For whatever reason, very little reporting has been done on the legality, or history, of the "no-fly zones" in the mainstream media. This has only encouraged the mistaken view of many that the "no-fly zones" are, in fact, sanctioned by the UN.

Security Council resolution 687 has been cited by the US as the establishing the zones patrolled by the US and Britain. It should be noted that 687 says nothing about northern Iraq, so it could not possibly serve as the legal foundation for the northern zone. Furthermore, resolution 688, dealing with bringing an end to the persecution of the Kurds in northern Iraq (often cited as the justification for the northern zone), does not establish a "no-fly zone." Instead, the resolution "requests the Secretary-General to use all resources at his disposal, including those of the relevant United Nations agencies, to address urgently the critical needs of the refugees and displaced Iraqi population." The coalition forces monitoring the northern zone are neither responsible to the Secretary-General nor are they UN forces, so the coalition forces in the north are not sanctioned by 688.

Resolution 687 does establish a demilitarized zone in southern Iraq, so, prima facie, it may seem that there is some justification for the claim that the southern "no-fly zone" has been established by the UN. But this turns out not to be the case.

Resolution 687 establishes the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM). The mission of UNIKOM is "to deter violations of the boundary through its presence in and surveillance of the demilitarized zone [and] to observe any hostility or potentially hostile action mounted from the territory of one state to the other." Resolution 687 also calls on Kofi Annan "to report regularly to the Security Council on the operations of the unit [UNIKOM], and immediately if there are serious violations of the zone or potential threats to peace."

The coalition forces monitoring the "no-fly zone" are distinct from UNIKOM, as can be seen by looking at the description of UNIKOM found at the UN website. Also, the Secretary-General's bi-annual reports on the work of UNIKOM, found on the UN website, regularly lists the coalition forces in the southern "no-fly zone" as violating the demilitarized zone established by the UN in resolution 687.

The coalition forces are not permitted to be in Iraq. In fact, resolution 687 ordered the US and British forces patrolling the "no-fly zones" to leave as soon as UNIKOM had deployed: "as soon as the Secretary-General notifies the Council of the completion of the deployment of the United Nations observer unit, the conditions will be established for the Member States cooperating with Kuwait in accordance with resolution 678 (1990) to bring their military presence in Iraq to an end consistent with resolution 686 (1991)." Not only are the "no-fly zones" not established by the UN, but the forces patrolling them also appear to be in violation of a Security Council resolution ordering them out of Iraq.

It should come as no surprise that the United States has misrepresented UN resolutions and even violated them. The US has a history of undermining the UN. US national security documents dating back to the 1940s, the very founding of the UN, show that the US has always viewed the UN as a threat.

The passage of resolution 1441, the resolution setting in motion the latest set of weapons inspections, is just another instance of the US manipulating the UN without regard for international law.

The US claims that 1441 provides the legal justification for an invasion of Iraq. But under Chapter V, Article 27 of the UN Charter, resolution 1441 is invalid: "Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting." Chapter VI deals with matters concerning war and the maintenance of peace, so the article applies to 1441.

The US Congress, by granting Mr. Bush the authority to wage war and by declaring Iraq an official matter of national security, legally made the US a party to a dispute with Iraq. Therefore, the US was not allowed under the voting laws of the UN Security Council to participate in the vote on resolution 1441.

But it has been argued that the UN ought not to determine when the US should act militarily to protect itself and the oppressed people of Iraq. Of course, this is not what the US is doing.

According to a report from Foreign Policy in Focus, the US watched in the 1990s as Turkish forces pursued Kurds into the northern "no-fly zone" and did nothing to aid the Kurds. A document filed in 1999 with the Independent Commission for International War Crimes Tribunal states that the US has been providing billions of dollars in weapons and training to Turkish forces, forces which slaughter Kurds and display the heads of their victims for photographs.

The US is not interested in protecting the Kurds from persecution. The US has never been interested in protecting groups from persecution and oppression. The 1990s saw the US not only helping Turkey in its campaign against the Kurds. The last decade has also seen the US giving aid to Suharto during the massacres in Indonesia, funding a Colombian government which backs murderous paramilitary forces, and pushing for nations to open up their markets to companies such as Bechtel, a company which buys water rights in poor countries and then sells the water back to the impoverished nations for exorbitant amounts.

Saddam Hussein does not do most of his own killing, and neither does the US. The difference is that Saddam Hussein is a threat only to the people of Iraq and the surrounding nations. The US has been involved in massacres all around the world.

George Orwell warned us about the spin of governments. He told us that it was difficult for the average citizen to think about the activities of a government that calls its illegal activities legal and its wars, peacekeeping. Without a media to correct these inappropriate uses of language, people will continue to believe that the US is defending the oppressed and that the "no-fly zones" are set up by the UN.

What are we to do?