Editing Iraq disarmament crisis (section)

==Legality==
{{Main|Legality of the Iraq War}}

===Authority under International Law===
The position of whether the invasion was legal under [[international law]] is unclear. Article 2 of the [[United Nations Charter]] forbids UN members from employing "the threat or use of force" against other states in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. Two exceptions exist to the rule: self-defense (Article 51) or an authorization by the Security Council to protect international peace and security (Chapter VII).

The government of the United States said publicly, and the British pledged privately, that they were willing to invade Iraq with or without Security Council authorization.<ref>
[http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1700881,00.html Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127195733/http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1700881,00.html |date=2007-11-27 }} [[The Guardian]] February 3, 2006
</ref>

There have been two military actions carried out with the approval of the Security Council. These two instances were the [[Korean War]] and the [[1991 Gulf War]].

The United States does not recognize the jurisdiction of any international court over its citizens or military, holding that the [[United States Supreme Court]] is its final authority. One example of this policy is that the United States did not ratify the [[International Criminal Court]] (ICC) treaty, and on 6 May 2002 it informed the UN that it has no intention to do so.

As of 24 February 2005 neither Iraq nor the United States have ratified the ICC treaty, and therefore neither the US attack on Iraq nor subsequent actions in Iraq fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC. The actions of signatories such as the United Kingdom and [[Spain]] could however fall under the ICC jurisdiction.

On March 17, 2003, [[Peter Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith|Peter Goldsmith]], [[Attorney General for England and Wales]], set out his government's legal justification for an invasion of Iraq. He said that the 1990 [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 678|Security Council Resolution 678]] authorised force against Iraq, which was suspended but not terminated by the 1991 [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 687|Resolution 687]], which imposed continuing obligations on Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction. A material breach of resolution 687 would revive the authority to use force under resolution 678. In Resolution 1441 the Security Council determined that Iraq was in material breach of resolution 687 because it had not fully carried out its obligations to disarm, and in early 2003 sent teams of weapons inspectors to verify the [[facts on the ground]].

Most member governments of the United Nations Security Council made clear that in their view, after resolution 1441 there was still no authorization for the use of force and that the invasion was illegal under international law.<ref>
{{cite web |url=http://www.worldpress.org/specials/iraq/ |title=International Law - War in Iraq - United Nations - Iraq |publisher=Worldpress.org |access-date=2013-06-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130730223344/http://worldpress.org/specials/iraq/ |archive-date=2013-07-30 |url-status=live }}
</ref> However, the US and its allies argued that no resolution authorizing the invasion would be necessary as they acted in self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter and by [[customary international law]]. The exercise of that right could not be banned by ceasefire. Since Iraq was not actively disarming themselves of its alleged WMDs and hid them from UN inspectors, the US and its allies claimed they had the right to assume that Iraq was holding WMDs. If the UN failed to force compliance, the US and the UK - as parties of the 1991 conflict - would invade Iraq without the UN, as they had already done in their intervention in the [[Kosovo War]]. [[Yoram Dinstein]] equates this to [[police officers]] cornering a convicted violent felon and saying "put your hands on your head", but instead he pulls something small and black (whether a gun or not) out of his pocket. Officers would have been justified in shooting him because he could have possessed something that is dangerous.<ref>{{cite book |title=War, Aggression and Self-Defence |pages=298–299 |date=December 12, 2011 |author=Yoram Dinstein |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]}}</ref>

===Authority under US Constitution===
The [[US Constitution|Constitution]] grants the power to declare war exclusively to the [[United States Congress]], but declares the President to be [[Commander-in-Chief]] of the [[US military]]. Because of this division of power, there has long been controversy regarding the authority of the President outside of a declared war. Nonetheless, of the many instances the United States has exercised force outside its borders, only five have been as part of a [[Declaration of war by the United States|declared war]].

In 1973, amid increasing domestic controversy about the [[Vietnam War]], Congress passed the [[War Powers Resolution]] to limit the ability of the president to undertake prolonged military action without Congressional authority. No president since has recognized the constitutionality of this act, and most legal scholars believe it would not survive a challenge in court.

To avoid initiating a crisis under the War Powers Resolution, the Bush administration sought explicit approval from the Congress to exercise force in Iraq. On October 9, 2002, the Congress passed the [[Iraq Resolution]] which explicitly authorized the President to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate. This raises the issue of whether or not Congress has the authority to delegate legislative power to the executive branch.  However, in a recent [[United States Supreme Court]] case, ''[[Hamdan v. Rumsfeld]],'' the Supreme Court ruled that the [[military commissions]] that the President had established, (and defended by arguing that he was given the power to create military courts by this resolution), were unconstitutional because they were unauthorized by Congress.

The Constitution also provides that international treaties ratified by the United States are among the highest law of the land ([[US Constitution]], Article VI). The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the US, which forbids member states, including the US, from attacking fellow member states, including Iraq, except in two carefully circumscribed situations (see [[UN Charter]]).