US hawk admits invasion was illegal

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.

French intransigence, he added, meant there had been 'no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein'.

Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts at the Old Vic theatre in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war. "

"Your Honor, it really was self-defense."
"Sir, you threw the first punch"
"Well, he might have had a weapon."
"Sir, he was unarmed."
"Well, he might have had a program to get a weapon."
"Sir, he tried to run away."
"Well, nobody liked him. Isn't it good that he's gone?"
"Sigh.... guilty of being a clueless, deceitful bully."