Dragonlich
1) Yes, the legal situation situation may never be resolved. Legal experts have supported both sides of the argument. My own personal assesment of those arguments is that the US and UK most definitely broke the spirit of the law and probably the letter of the law too. But I don't think there is much more we can say on the legal issue other than that we fall on different sides of the fance. But I can offer you a link to a very interesting
mock trial set up by the BBC's Today Programme. It seems very fair and is worth listening to if you have the time.
Was it wrong? Does the 'selective policeman' argument stand up? Again, my answer to the first and (to some degree) second question is Yes.
@ I believe it was wrong because it defied the UN in an act of raw American power and international vigilante justice. There were other options open that would have saved the thousands of lives that the war took and would have supported rather than undermined the good work of the UN. The justification given by the coalition (and the only legally acceptable one) was that there was an imminent (45 minutes, said Blair) threat to the security of the world. We are now seeing that that was probably nonsense.
@ As for the 'selective policeman' I have two points. Firstly, America is not an international policeman, it is an international citizen and therefore any justice it enacts will be vigilante justice. Secondly, if a policeman consistently shows a selectivity in which criminals they pursue and which they do not, then one must ask whether the policeman is not acting from alterior motives and is abusing their power.
2) Yes they held WMDs once and yes they were being evasive about compliance with a UN resolution. The same applies to Israel and a whole host of nations. "Reasonable assumptions" are not enough to wage war and sacrifice thousands of lives. You need evidence.
3) "you can assume". See (2) and
Dilbert's post.
4) How long do we wait? Three months, six months, a year, five years? I have no doubt that given long enough they will "find" something in Iraq. But remember that you and I were told that there was a serious, imminent threat to our national security and that is why we had to, and legally could, risk our troops lives invading another country. How serious a threat could it have been to have left so little trace? Yes, I know. Iraq is bigger than France. But note that weapons inspectors can detect particles at the nanogram level. To paraphrase the words of one inspector, "if WMDs have ever been here, we'll know about it". And still we are turning up nothing but three dodgy trucks.