For those of you who still respect the law, here's the full text of U.N. Resolution No. 1441, and precedent Resolutions 678 and 687. Since the Coalition of the Willing (or the Axis of the Bribed, depending on your fancy) has now decided that further Security Council action would not be helpful, and might even be counterproductive, the rationale now being offered for going to war immediately is that Resolution 1441 provides enabling language for the use of force that was authorized in both of the earlier U.N. resolutions. Will all due respect to my legal colleagues, in both the U.S. and U.K., who formulated that approach, and without commenting on whether Iraq is, in fact, complying with UN Resolutions, your argument is bunk, and I would say further that you are a disgrace to the profession for putting the lives of soldiers and civilians into harm's way on such a flimsy pretext.

First, some background. Resolution No. 678, passed November 29, 1990, demanded that Iraq comply with an earlier UN Resolution (No. 660) to withdraw from Kuwait by a date certain, or that the member states could "use all necessary means" to make them withdraw. That's all it says. There is no other language extending beyond the liberation of Kuwait.
Resolution No. 687, passed April 3, 1991, was essentially the peace treaty between Iraq and the U.N. Among other things, Iraq had to respect Kuwait's borders (pursuant to a 1932 agreement), unconditionally agree to disarm and to allow U.N. inspections, to disavow terrorism, pay reparations, and do all manner of things to suggest that it was willing to rejoin the civilized world. Well, other than Ramsey Clark, Noam Chomsky and a few benighted souls, I don't think anyone believes that Iraq has fully complied with that resolution. However, there is no language in that particular resolution that authorizes force, in the clear language that Resolution No. 678 did a few months earlier.

So last year, the Security Council again met, and passed Resolution No. 1441. The UN, "deploring" Iraq's non-compliance, again demanded that Iraq disarm, comply with inspections, etc., and required that Iraq submit to a more comprehensive inspection regime. This time, however, the U.N. included an enforcement clause. Paragraph 4 of the resolution states:

(The Security Council) (d)ecides that false statements or omissions in the declaration submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution ad failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and 12 below.

Paragraphs 11 and 12 set out what the consequences would be if Iraq again failed to comply with the resolution: that the head inspector (Mr. Blix) would report any perceived breaches to the Security Council, which would "convene immediately...in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security."

In other words, the Security Council reserved to itself the right to determine whether Iraq complied with its resolutions. Nowhere in Resolution 1441 does the Security Council grant any nation the power to unilaterally judge the issue of compliance, much less to punish the Iraqi people. More to the point, the use of Resolution No. 678 as a rationale for war is one of the most staggering instances of intellectual dishonesty I can recall in my lifetime, by an administration that ran for office on a platform of knowing what "is" meant. The only reference to that resolution in 1441 is a statement that it had earlier authorized member states to go to war to liberate Kuwait. No sincere reading of that language gives any nation the power to invade Iraq again, without UN approval.

Maybe an argument can be made that the U.S. does not wish to pay lip service anymore to international law, and to working with other nations to protect the common good. Maybe we should withdraw from the U.N., as many on the right seem to wish. As I've said before, I generally support policies turning the screws up on Saddam Hussein, and would not oppose a war at all costs. But don't use legally tendentious reasoning to rationalize an attack on another country. That's the sort of history we don't need to see repeated.