Traffic Surge & Lobbying Journalists

Thanks to wah at Quantum Philosophy for the plug over at the Daily Kos comments.

In my brief effort to start promoting the site a couple of weeks ago, I asked him to help spread the word.

I have received a couple of volunteer researchers from his plug including a "third-year measurement and statistics graduate student." Awesome.

Someone noticed my mention of lobbying journalists in the comments. I have alerted a number of investigative journalists that I interviewed about my timelines (UPDATE June 6, 2005: these timelines currently offline), but I'm not sure if anyone is using them yet.

Last week as part of my attempt of some pre-election activism, I was trying to provide some context to some NYT and WashPost journalists to Bush's shifting of his justifications for war in Iraq.

Bush is now saying that we went to war because Saddam was "gaming the oil-for-food" program and that he was determined to violate sanctions. Bush is essentially arguing that Iraq was violating previous UN security council resolutions, and that the US has the right to go in and unilaterally enforce these resolutions. This argument really doesn't hold up with the International Lawyers I've talked to.

I tried to e-mail the message below to some journalists on October 8th, but I don't think anyone took the bait and I didn't hear back from anyone.

I would like to think that I helped inspire this article that the Washington Post stuffed on Page A32, but I have no proof.

An e-mail sent to various NYT and WashPost Journalists on October 8th, 2004

Powell told Warren Strobel in an interview yesterday, "And as you saw from the Duelfer report, he was doing everything he could to get out from under the sanctions. He was cheating on the sanctions. He was deceiving the world, sometimes in ways that are incomprehensible as to why he was trying to deceive the world in that way, which was just putting him at greater risk. But that's what he was doing."

Remember all of this Bush Admin spin within the context of Kofi Annan's statement to the BBC on 9/16/04
"Yes, I have indicated [the war in Iraq] is not in conformity with the UN Charter, from our point of view and from the Charter point of view it was illegal."

Powell is essentially arguing that Saddam was violating sanctions and therefore violating UNSC resolutions. Thus, the US has the right to enforce Iraq's breaches of UNSC resolutions while VIOLATING the UN charter at the same time.

Does their reasoning follow any line of logic?

It is safe to assume that Powell is right that Saddam was NOT complying with existing resolutions and sanctions, but they US CAN NOT honestly argue that the degree of these breaches merited a wholesale invasion of Iraq to overthrow the government.

Sean Murphy argues that "assuming the 'revival' theory is valid" that the "use of force is limited to what is necessary and proportionate in addressing the material breach" (MORE BELOW)

Violating the sanctions doesn't give the US the right to go to war - especially WITHOUT the consent of the body the created the resolutions, the UNSC. The US has no unilateral jurisdiction over these resolutions and only the UNSC as a body can decide what to do.

If the US is going to use International Law to justify this war, then they should receive legal counter arguments to the legitimacy of their claims.

I realize that the mass psychology of the American public probably isn't quite ready for the nuances of digging into this, but the State Department is probably totally unprepaired for anyone actually asking to see a full copy of the US Legal Theory for why they think going to war under the 678/687 "revival" theory is legitimate.

*** DID YOU KNOW THAT THE US HAS NEVER OFFICIALLY RELEASED THE US LEGAL THEORY FOR WHY THE WAR IS JUSTIFIED UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW? ***

They have only produced a rough outline.

And they may be trying to CENSOR pages discussing the legal theory
(Try to follow the links at here & read MORE BELOW)

[I have been told that] the US never wrote up a detailed or scholarly legal argument for this war.
[...]
Is the US theory is bunk and [this person] doesn't want to be on the record trying to defend it? Or is this really true? Did the US decide to assert this alleged "legal right" out of whole cloth?

Have they stamped the US legal theory secret?
If so how is it protecting National Security?
Isn't now a PERFECT opportunity to ask to see it?
Can you see if it exists?
Can you do a FOIA request?

If they do have one, then it is probably not as extensive as Sean Murphy's "Assessing the Legality of Invading Iraq"

If you did get a hold of "an official copy" [of the US legal theory as to why it was legal to invade Iraq] then Sean's paper would be a great reference to dissect it.

If it turns out that they don't have one, then that alone should be newsworthy. That means that the US basically asserted whatever "legal right" it wanted without ever having to provide any substative evidence to back it up.

Can they just tell the American public whatever they want, and threaten other countries with economic repurcussions if they try to say anything about it.

[A source] told me that in order for the press to do a
story on the International Legal issues surrounding the war in Iraq, that you would need 4000 signatures from Intl Laywers (half US and half foreign) declaring that the war in Iraq was illegal.

This is never going to happen. So does this mean that the Bush Administration can NOW shift their casus belli for war to oil-for-food corruption and sanctions violations???

Bush Admin has been banking on no one looking into this all along, and now it is their fall back position.

But if you really look into it, it doesn't hold water.

What do the International Lawyers have to say about this?
Sean Murphy GWU, 202-994-8763
Jane Stromseth, Georgetown 202-662-9413
Diane Orentlicher, AU 202-274-4229
Robert Goldman, AU 202-274-4111
Peter Raven-Hansen 202-994-8171
David Cole 202-662-9078
Phyllis Bennis 202-667-1650
Michael Ratner 212-614-6464 x429
Mike Matheson 202-994-9833

One who supports the US legal theory:
Ruth Wedgewood 202-663-5618

This will help you understand why our allies and other countries do not accept the US line of reasoning and will see no reason to send their sons to die in Iraq for Bush's mistake.

After seeing some of the foreign press' reaction to the CIA report of no WMD, then it is pretty safe to assume that neither Kerry or Bush are going to win any more allies to the coalition.

You should talk to Sean Murphy at George Washington University (202) 994-8763

I interviewed him and he was very good at picking apart the US legal theory.

He is a passage from Murphy's paper that helps counter the "sanctions" argument:

"Assessing the Legality of Invading Iraq":

The third problem with the "revival" theory concerns the objectives for which the revived use of force may be used. If a material breach of Resolution 687 is the trigger for using force under the authority of resolution 678, then presumably that use of force is limited to what is necessary and proportionate in addressing the material breach (73)

Thus—assuming the "revival" theory is valid—an Iraqi failure to allow weapons inspectors to visit a particular site might result in a use of force to compel acceptance of those inspectors, or the Iraqi construction of a WMD site might be destroyed by a missile attack. Yet, by contrast, material breaches of that type would not seem to warrant a state or group of states invading and occupying Iraq, and toppling its government.

If you want some legal references, then go track down the information in Murphy’s 73rd footnote:

Although the legal theory is cast in terms of "material breach" of Security Council resolutions, the resort to force in response to that breach is still governed by international rules applying to the use of force. It is generally accepted that customary international law requires that the use of force—whether based on self-defense or on authority of the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter—be necessary to address, and proportionate to, the threat that gave rise to the right to use force. See, e.g., 1 THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 753 (Bruno Simma, ed., 2d ed., 2002) (noting the language in UN Charter Article 42 that the Security Council may decide on forcible measures "as may be necessary" to maintain or restore international peace and security); see also Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, 1996 ICJ Rep. 226, para. 41 (Advisory Opinion of July 8); Judith Gail Gardam, Proportionality and Force in International Law, 87 AM. J. INT’L L. 391, 391 (1993). Similarly, the rules relating to "counter-measures" under the law of state responsibility (which concern measures by one state against another state whose acts impair the international rights of the first state) call for such counter-measures to be proportionate, meaning "commensurate with the injury suffered, taking into account the gravity of the internationally wrongful act and the rights in question." See JAMES CRAWFORD, THE INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION’S ARTICLES ON STATE RESPONSIBILITY: INTRODUCTION, TEXT, AND COMMENTARIES 294 (2002) (quoting Article 51 of the International Law Commission’s articles on state responsibility); see also FRANCK, supra note 35, at 132-34 (asserting that UN practice offers some latitude for states to resort to forcible counter-measures, but that such acts are assessed in accordance with principles of necessity and proportionality)."

CENSORSHIP????
Go to the State Dept page "Legal Basis for U.S. Action in Iraq" that has a number of links spelling out the legal theory:

All but one link gives you a 404 error.

This used to be the link to Negroponte's Letter

Also gives a 404 error.

404 errors may indicate a restructuring of the site, but you would think that you have run into other broken links.

Go to the Internet Archive looking for this URL

You'll find that the State Dept. installed a robot.txt file

From the Internet Archive:
"By installing a robots.txt file on your web server, you can exclude your site from being archived, as well as block access to them on the archive."

Why is the State Department blocking access to all the sites with a robot.txt file?

http://usinfo.state.gov/robots.txt

The White House was asked about this back on October 27, 2003 and had an explanation for it.

White House Website and History

WHITE HOUSE'S SEARCH ENGINE PRACTICES CAUSE CONCERN

Why is the State Department selectively BLOCKING search engine and archival access to 19 specific sections? Do they have a legitimate reason? Or is it just to make it harder for people like me to look into their legal theory for war?

-Kent Bye.
Director, http://www.EchoChamberProject.com