Lawyers and Rights Groups Denounce Plans for War Against Iran
On January 31, European, international, and U.S. legal and human rights groups issued an open letter warning of the illegality of any offensive military action by the United States against Iran. Signatories include the Center for Constitutional Rights (U.S.), Droite Solidarite (France), European Association of Lawyers for Human Rights and Democracy, Italian Association of Democratic Lawyers, Haldane Society (United Kingdom), International Association of Democratic Lawyers, National Lawyers Guild (U.S.), and Progress Lawyers Network (Belgium). The text of the letter is below.
Open Letter to All Members of Congress, the Bush Administration and the U.S. Armed Forces f rom Legal and Human Rights Groups
There are increasing indications that the Bush administration intends to take military action against Iran. There are also indications that the administration would support military action by Israel against Iran.
The undersigned organizations issue this Open Letter to All Members of Congress, the Administration and the U.S. Armed Forces to reiterate their affirmative duties to prevent military action and to refrain from ongoing threats to peace.
Such military action would be illegal, and any member of the administration, the military or Congress supporting such action would be aiding and abetting this violation.
Offensive military action against Iran would be illegal, as the United States is bound under the United Nations Charter to settle international disputes by peaceful means and to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state or act in any other manner inconsistent with the purpose of the United Nations (Article 2 sections 3 and 4). While Article 51 of the charter recognizes the inherent right of individual or collective self defense, such a right exists only if an armed attack occurs and is allowed only until the Security Council can take measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
The UN Charter, as a treaty signed by the U.S., is part of the Supreme Law of the United States under Article VI §2 of the United States Constitution. If the President and Congress fail to abide by the law as provided in the Constitution they violate their sacred oaths of office.
Any military action against Iran in the absence of a military strike by Iran would be a war of aggression outlawed under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. The sending of aircraft carriers combined with recent threatening statements constitutes a threat to wage an aggressive war, which is also prohibited by the Charter. Crimes against peace include: planning, preparation, initiation or waging a war of aggression in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy to accomplish these acts.
The United States and all countries of the world that have signed the UN Charter are required to abide by their obligations under it. It is in the interests of all countries of the world that the United Nations be a viable multilateral institution capable of carrying out the mission of its charter to preserve peace and promote development and human rights. Actions which violate that charter undermine it. Actions by the U.S. that violate the charter prevent the UN from acting effectively; they also undermine the credibility of the U.S. in the world community. The U.S. cannot demand that other countries obey the terms of the UN Charter while it is violating those very provisions with impunity.
The War Powers Act, which requires congressional approval of military action, must be read consistently with our obligations under the UN Charter not to engage in wars of aggression. We urge:
1. The President, Vice President, and all other members of the Bush administration who are in a decision-making role with regard to taking military action in Iran, to immediately renounce such efforts to engage in this war;
2. The members of the military to refuse any requests by the administration to draw up or execute plans for any invasion or other military action against Iran in light of the illegality of such actions; and
3. That Congress immediately pass a binding resolution reaffirming the United States’ legal obligations and informing the President and the administration that it will not concur in any proposed invasion of or military action against Iran, would refuse to approve funding for any such military action, and would consider actions taken in contravention of the resolution as impeachable offenses.
Signed,
Center for Constitutional Rights, Vincent Warren, Executive Director; Bill Goodman, Legal Director
Droite Solidarite, Roland Weyl, President
European Association of Lawyers for Human Rights and Democracy, RA Thomas Schmid, Secretary General; Professor Bill Bowring
Italian Association of Democratic Lawyers, Fabio Marcelli
Haldane Society, United Kingdom, Liz Davies
International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Jitendra Sharma, President; Jeanne Mirer, Secretary General
National Lawyers Guild, Marjorie Cohn, President
Progress Lawyers Network, Belgium, Jan Fermon
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Legislation on Iran
Reflecting the growing constitutional crisis and increasing fights within the ruling circles over how to go forward with U.S. empire-building, two resolutions have been introduced in the House of Representatives opposing military action against Iran. These come alongside public opposition by top retired military and government officials.
One resolution, House Joint Resolution 14, was introduced by Walter Jones, Republican of North Carolina (see statement below). It has 11 co-sponsors, including presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich and head of the subcommittee on defense of the House Appropriations Committee, Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha. The resolution states that unless there is an “attack by Iran, or a demonstrably imminent attack by Iran, upon the United States, its territories or possessions or its armed forces,” the President must consult with Congress and receive specific authorization prior to initiating military force against Iran.
Peter DeFazio, of Oregon, introduced House Concurrent Resolution, 33 (H.Con.Res.33). His bill has 19 co-sponsors, including head of the Judiciary Committee John Conyers, Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey of California, and Kucinich and Murtha. The resolution references the U.S. Constitution and traces the history of the war-making powers of the President to express the sense of Congress that: 1) initiating a military attack against Iran falls outside the President’s “Commander-in-Chief” constitutional authority; 2) the authorization of force resolution approved in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, does not extend to authorizing the President to use force against Iran, including over its nuclear program; 3) the authorization of force resolution approved to go to war with Iraq does not extend to authorizing the President to use force against Iran, including over its nuclear program; and 4) seeking congressional authorization prior to taking military action against Iran is not discretionary for the President, but a legal and constitutional requirement.
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Congressional Approval Required Prior to Use of Military Force Against Iran
Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC) introduced House Joint Resolution 14, a joint resolution concerning the use of force by the United States against Iran, on January 12. The resolution requires that — absent a national emergency created by an attack, or a demonstrably imminent attack, by Iran upon the United States or its armed forces — the President must consult with Congress and receive specific authorization prior to initiating any use of military force against Iran.
“Today, there is a growing concern — justified or not — that some U.S. officials are contemplating military action against Iran,” Jones said. “This resolution makes it crystal clear that no previous resolution passed by Congress authorizes such use of force. The Constitution of the United States declares that, while the Commander in Chief has the power to conduct wars, only Congress has the power to authorize them.”
“One of the many lessons from our involvement in Iraq is that Congress needs to ask the right questions prior to exercising its Constitutional authority to approve the use of military force,” Jones said.
“It was for this same reason that, in 1999, I joined 25 members of Congress in going to the U.S. Supreme Court to compel President Clinton to follow the Constitution and halt U.S. military action in Yugoslavia unless Congress granted him the authority to use military force in that manner,” Jones said.
“If the President is contemplating committing our blood and treasure in another war, then he and his administration must make the case to Congress and the American people why it would be in the national security interests of the United States to engage militarily in Iran,” Jones said.
“If a military venture against Iran is necessary, it should be easily justifiable to Congress,” Jones said. “If no military action is contemplated, then there should be no objection to this commonsense resolution.”[TOP]
Cruise Missile Diplomacy: Bush Targets Iran
As Congress and the American people protest the travesty Bush created in Iraq, our President is gunning for a confrontation with Iran. Bush is rattling the sabers and opting for gunboat diplomacy by pledging to “seek out and destroy” Iranian networks “providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies” in Iraq. But he has produced no hard evidence that Iran is supplying forces in Iraq with such weapons or manufacturing their own nuclear weapons.
When I say “gunboat diplomacy,” I mean that literally. Bush recently sent U.S. warships and Patriot missile batteries to the Persian Gulf and moved U.S. attack aircraft to Turkey and other countries on Iran’s borders. U.S. forces stormed the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq and captured six Iranian nationals, and Bush announced he will go after any Iranians he considers a threat. There are also indications the Bush administration would support military action by Israel against Iran.
On January 30, the administration stepped up its inflammatory rhetoric. U.S. officials said Iranians may have trained attackers who killed five Americans in Karbala on January 20. They also implicated the Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by Moktada al-Sadr. It is very interesting that the New York Times characterized the focus on Iran and the Mahdi Army as “convenient from the point of view of the Bush administration.”
Investigators were stumped at how the attackers — who wore American-style uniforms — secured forged U.S. identity cards and American-style M-4 rifles, and used stun grenades like those used only by U.S. forces. They are also confounded at the way the attackers’ convoy of S.U.V.’s gave the impression that it was American and slipped through Iraqi checkpoints. An article in the January 31 Times cites a theory that “a Western mercenary group” may have been involved. In the past the U.S. government used the CIA to covertly overthrow governments, such as Iran’s in 1953 and Chile’s in 1973. Could mercenaries now be doing the Bush administration’s dirty work?
The plan to attack Iran has been in the works since Bush placed that country into his “axis of evil” in January 2002. Bush’s 2006 National Military Strategy says, “We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran.” In April 2006, Seymour Hersh revealed the U.S. military was making preparations for an invasion of Iran. “Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups,” Hersh learned from current and former American military intelligence officials.
One of the military proposals calls for the use of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons against underground nuclear sites in Iran. That would mean “mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years,” a former senior intelligence official told Hersh. A Pentagon adviser said the Air Force would strike many hundreds of targets in Iran, 99 percent of which have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.
A former defense official who still advises the Bush administration informed Hersh the military planning was grounded in the belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” That is the same faulty logic the U.S. government has used to justify its cruel embargo and blockade of Cuba since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
Congress has the responsibility to prevent Bush from attacking Iran. In view of congressional opposition to his war in Iraq, Bush will not likely ask permission to make war on Iran. We can expect Bush to provoke — or even fabricate a la Tonkin Gulf — an incident with Iran and then claim he is responding to Iranian aggression. Senior Pentagon officials reported in the Los Angeles Times January 31, that Air Force and Navy fighter planes along the Iran-Iraq border may be used more aggressively. Bush will then try to bootstrap the September 2001 and October 2002 congressional authorizations for force in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively into consent to attack Iran.
Offensive military action against Iran would be illegal under the United Nations Charter, which requires that members settle international disputes by peaceful means. The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the U.S. and thus part of American law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Under the Charter, a country can attack another only in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council. Moreover, the use of nuclear weapons would violate our obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Congress should immediately pass a binding resolution reaffirming the United States’ legal obligations and informing the Bush administration that it will not concur in any invasion or military action against Iran, would refuse to approve any funding for it, and would consider actions taken in contravention of the resolution as impeachable offenses.
Marjorie Cohn, MWC News Magazine senior editor, is a professor at Thomas -Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.[TOP]
U.S. Generals on Iran
Use Diplomacy, Not Military Force
Three former high-ranking U.S. military officers urged U.S. President George W. Bush not to use military force and to instead “engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions.” The top officers are calling for a diplomatic solution. They are also calling on Britain to play a role in blocking military action. Their letter was published in the British newspaper, the Sunday Times on February 4.
The signatories were retired Lieutenant General Robert G. Gard, a senior military fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington, DC; retired Marine General Joseph P. Hoar, former head of U.S. Central Command; and Vice-Admiral Jack Shanahan, former director of the Center for Defense Information.
The officers wrote:
“As former U.S. military leaders, we strongly caution against the use of military force against Iran. An attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq, and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions. The current crisis must be resolved through diplomacy.
“A strategy of diplomatic engagement with Iran would serve the interests of the U.S. and the U.K. and potentially could enhance regional and international security. The British government has a vital role to play in securing a renewed diplomatic push and making it clear that it will oppose any recourse to military force. The Bush administration should engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions. There is time available to talk, we must ensure that we use it.”
Envoys Tour Iran Nuclear Energy Site
In related news, Iran showed United Nations surveillance cameras to envoys from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of developing nations during a tour of a nuclear site on Saturday, demonstrating its openness about its nuclear program.
The six NAM diplomats, accredited to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), visited the site near the central Iranian city of Isfahan that converts uranium ore into feedstock uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas.
About 90 Iranian and foreign journalists were also shown the site, where employees in white overalls and face masks feed uranium “yellow cake” into a conversion line. “ Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s IAEA envoy, said during the tour. Soltanieh said the trip showed Iran’s “transparency” and pointed out two IAEA cameras to monitor work in a room were UF6 is produced at the site, situated in a barren area southeast of Isfahan and surrounded by anti-aircraft guns.[TOP]
Escalation Against Iran: The Pieces Are Being Put in Place
The pieces are moving. They will be in place by the end of February. The United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran.
The second carrier strike group leaves the U.S. west coast on January 16. It will be joined by naval mine clearing assets from both the United States and the UK. Patriot missile defense systems have also been ordered to deploy to the Gulf.
Maybe as a guard against north Korea seeing operations focused on Iran as a chance to be aggressive, a squadron of F-117 stealth fighters has just been deployed to Korea.
This has to be called escalation. We have to remind ourselves, just as Iran is supporting groups inside Iraq, the United States is supporting groups inside Iran. Just as Iran has special operations troops operating inside Iraq, we’ve read the United States has special operations troops operating inside Iran.
Just as Iran is supporting Hamas, two weeks ago we found out the United States is supporting arms for Abbas. Just as Iran and Syria are supporting Hizbollah in Lebanon we are now learning the White House has approved a finding to allow the CIA to support opposition groups inside Lebanon. Just as Iran is supporting Syria, we’ve learned recently that the United States is going to fund Syrian opposition groups.
We learned this week the President authorized an attack on the Iranian liaison office in Irbil.
The White House keeps saying there are no plans to attack Iran. Obviously, the facts suggest otherwise. Equally as clear, the Iranians will read what the Administrations is doing not what it is saying.
It is possible the White House strategy is just implementing a strategy to put pressure on Iran on a number of fronts, and this will never amount to anything. On the other hand, if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we’ll see a few more steps unfold.
First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff. The Patriot missiles going to the GCC states (Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emerites) are only part of the missile defense assets. I would expect to see the deployment of some of the European-based missile defense assets to Israel, just as they were before Gulf II.
I would expect deployment of additional USAF fighters into the bases in Iraq, maybe some into Afghanistan.
I think we will read about the deployment of some of the newly arriving Army brigades going into Iraq being deployed to the border with Iran. Their mission will be to guard against any Iranian movements into Iraq.
As one of the last steps before a strike, we will see U.S. Air Force tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the U.S.-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.
The White House could be telling the truth. Maybe there are no plans to take Iran to the next level. The fuel for a fire is in place, however. All we need is a spark. The danger is that we have created conditions that could lead to a Greater Middle East War.
Sam Gardiner is a retired colonel of the US Air Force. He has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College.
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Ex-National Security Adviser Warns that Bush is Seeking a Pretext to Attack Iran
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 1, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.
Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”
“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”
Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”
“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.
Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
This was an unmistakable warning to the U.S. Congress, replete with quotation marks to discount the “defensive” nature of such military action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation — including a possible terrorist attack within the U.S.— to provide the casus belli for war.
That a man such as Brzezinski, with decades of experience in the top echelons of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, a man who has the closest links to the military and to intelligence agencies, should issue such a warning at an open hearing of the U.S. Senate has immense and grave significance.
Brzezinski knows whereof he speaks, having authored provocations of his own while serving as Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. In that capacity, as he has since acknowledged in published writings, he drew up the covert plan at the end of the 1970s to mobilize Islamic fundamentalist mujaheddin to topple the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan and draw the Soviet Union into a ruinous war in that country.
Following his opening remarks, in response to questions from the senators, Brzezinski reiterated his warning of a provocation.
He called the senators’ attention to a March 27, 2006 report in the New York Times on “a private meeting between the president and Prime Minister Blair, two months before the war, based on a memorandum prepared by the British official present at this meeting.” In the article, Brzezinski said, “the president is cited as saying he is concerned that there may not be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and that there must be some consideration given to finding a different basis for undertaking the action.”
He continued: “I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: ‘The memo states that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.’
“He described the several ways in which this could be done. I won’t go into that... the ways were quite sensational, at least one of them.
“If one is of the view that one is dealing with an implacable enemy that has to be removed, that course of action may under certain circumstances be appealing. I’m afraid that if this situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, and if Iran is perceived as in some fashion involved or responsible, or a potential beneficiary, that temptation could arise.”
At another point Brzezinski remarked on the conspiratorial methods of the Bush administration and all but described it as a cabal. “I am perplexed,” he said, “by the fact that major strategic decisions seem to be made within a very narrow circle of individuals — just a few, probably a handful, perhaps not more than the fingers on my hand. And these are the individuals, all of whom but one, who made the original decision to go to war, and used the original justifications to go to war.”
None of the senators in attendance addressed themselves to the stark warning from Brzezinski. The Democrats in particular, flaccid, complacent and complicit in the war conspiracies of the Bush administration, said nothing about the danger of a provocation spelled out by the witness.
Following the hearing, this reporter asked Brzezinski directly if he was suggesting that the source of a possible provocation might be the U.S. government itself. The former national security adviser was evasive.
The following exchange took place:
Q: Dr. Brzezinski, who do you think would be carrying out this possible provocation?
A: I have no idea. As I said, these things can never be predicted. It can be spontaneous.
Q: Are you suggesting there is a possibility it could originate within the U.S. government itself?
A: I’m saying the whole situation can get out of hand and all sorts of calculations can produce a circumstance that would be very difficult to trace.
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