Street legal 2

In the blowback from Kofi Annan's recent remarks, two further points seem to be worth making. They are highlighted in turn by the two reports below.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell disputed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's assertion that the U.S.-led war in Iraq was illegal and said in an interview published on Friday the comment was "not a very useful statement to make at this point."

"What does it gain anyone? We should all be gathering around the idea of helping the Iraqis, not getting into these kinds of side issues," Powell said in an interview with The Washington Times.
.....
Powell... said: "What we did was totally consistent with international law."

Officials in Britain, Australia and Poland also insisted the military action in Iraq was legal.

'Not very useful' seems an apt way of describing Annan's statement, given that he is secretary general of the body that has twice given its authorization to the political transition process towards trying to establish democratic Iraqi self-rule.

PARIS, Sept 17 (AFP) - France on Friday backed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's description of the US-led war on Iraq as "illegal", with Foreign Minister Michel Barnier saying that long-held stance was why his country had opposed joining the conflict.

"You well know that what explains our country's disagreement with the way the war was carried out was that it clearly did not at that time abide by international law..."

If the war was not in accordance with international law - and I say only 'if', by way of making the following point - then France's stance at the UN security council wasn't the result of that, it was one of the reasons for it. (This is explained here.) Had the security council been willing to back the war, the latter wouldn't have been illegal even by Kofi Annan's criteria.