QandO

September 16, 2004

Allies rebuke Annan
Posted by McQ

Below in "Stray Voltage" I mentioned Kofi Annan's BBC interview. In that interview, Annan characterized the invasion of Iraq as "illegal". Seems that description engendered a rather sharp reaction among some of the states which participated in Iraq:

But Australian Prime Minister John Howard said it was entirely valid.

[...]

Labelling the international body "paralysed", he said it was incapable of dealing with international crises.

"The legal advice we had - and I tabled it at the time - was that the action was entirely valid in international law terms," he said.

In the US, Randy Scheunemann, a former advisor to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had this to say:

"I think it is outrageous for the secretary general, who ultimately works for the member states, to try and supplant his judgement for the judgement of the member states," he told the BBC.

"To do this 51 days before an American election reeks of political interference," Randy Scheunemann said.

Scheunemann also points to the UN's lack of action in Sudan as a further indication of its failure and the failure of multilateralism under its leadership.

The Brits too reacted strongly:

The British government - which has argued that UN resolutions provided a legal basis for intervening to topple Saddam Hussein - said the 2003 invasion was "not only lawful but necessary".

"We spelt out at the time our reasons for believing the conflict in Iraq was indeed lawful and why we believed it was necessary to uphold those UN resolutions," Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt told the BBC.

Japan's response is a bit more muted, but it asks, in essence, what the heck Annan meant by his use of the term "illegal".

Japan's top government spokesperson told a news conference that he would be seeking clarification about the exact significance of Mr Annan's words.

"We wish to verify the real meaning by making various inquiries," Hiroyuki Hosoda was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

It'll be interesting to see if there's any further fallout from the Annan interview.
Bush speaks to the UN General Assembly next week, and the BBC is of the opinion that both Annan and the Bush administration will try to play this down.

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