US and UK unilaterally attack Iraq

2 hours ago, the US and UK started an attack on Iraq. Under international law, this attack is illegal as it was not approved by the UN security council. In fact the UN security council has rejected repeated US requests to authorize it. Under international law, this is a war-crime. Under US law it is illegal, since Congress was not asked to approve it. (CT:Sengan is wrong here. Under Executive Order, Clinton can do this) The Pentagon estimates that 10,000 people will be killed. There are disturbing reports that Richard Butler, chairman of UNSCOM, has been in consultation with the US to draft his reports. Moreover, Cofi Annan, UN-head did not instruct Butler to evacuate the arms inspectors -- the US did. France, Russia and China have voiced opposition. Of relevance is that tomorrow, Clinton was to be impeached since most of the congress members wanted him impeached. Indeed, the Senate told the Whitehouse that he would be impeached tomorrow unless he bombed Iraq.

Comments are disabled, as I expect a lot of people will believe the US/UK side of the story and will consider this story flame-bait or political. Lots of readers have submitted the story, so some of you are interested. I personally am disgusted at my country's behaviour (the UK) which always follows the US lead, because it believes it has some sort of special relationship with the US... yeah, right. Also, notice that the attack (5pm EST, 1am Iraq time) happened to be timed for prime-time US-TV, just like the Libya attack. Remember that Iraq was an ally of the US, and the US shipped Iraq weapons of mass-destruction, such as chemical weapons. Indeed, after the Gulf War, when the US was supposed to be enforcing a no-fly zone, Iraq used chemical weapons against the southern Shia Muslims.

Update: 12/16 08:53 by CT : I enabled comments. I didn't think it fair that a gag be placed here, especially not considering Sengan's fairly inflammatory statements. I won't bother harping on my political beliefs here, you guys can state your own. Feel free to refute the huge number of flaws in Sengans of writeup- including the fact that Legally a president can, under executive order declare military operations without congressional approval.

Update: 12/16 10:20 by CT : I'm getting a boatload of email about this thing, and I have no choice but to post this form response and to beg people to lay off until tomorrow at noon when I'll be done with my exams. I really don't wanna retake History next semester.

1. It was inappropriate for Sengan to disable comment posting and use Slashdot as his personal soapbox. I reenabled comment posting as soon as I noticed. I'm really sorry about this, it was inexcusable.
2. This story was inappropriate for Slashdot. We focus on technical news here, and geek humor, and free software. Not on international politics. That said, I give authors free reign to post stories on what they see appropriate. In this case, that free reign bit me in the ass.
3. The article has several mistakes, errors, and inaccuracies. The comments list many of them over and over again.
4. I really need to continue studying or I'm gonna bomb this exam, and I really don't want to retake a class next semester.
5. I'm sorry.

Update: 12/16 11:45 by S: I disabled comments in order to avoid /. going down. Not censorship. I apologize about that, since apparently /. can now support the load. The news source for the above is Pacifica Radio's Iraq coverage, and in particular Prof Chomsky. I'm sorry for the spelling mistakes. This morning Pacifica claimed it was illegal again according to US law, but I am no lawyer. However, the US did ask for the right to take military action in November, and the Security Council refused them. Why ask if they did not need it? I got a lot of email about this, about a 1/3 supportive, mainly non-US, and 2/3s against, mainly US. To the extent that I believe democracy is about questioning government motives, something I have not seen on US-media, I do not apologize for this post. I do think it is stuff that matters, and if I were not ill I would have come up with better sources. I am sorry though, about the reaction it caused. Further info is in Liberation and Democracy Now. World reaction is not all favorable.