Iraq war illegal, former U.K. lawyer says

LONDON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Justification used by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to support the U.S.-led of invasion of Iraq in 2003 was flawed, Iranian state media said Tuesday.

Baron Thomas Henry Bingham, former head of the judicial branch of the House of Lords, told the British Institute of International and Comparative Law that lawmakers had not provided sufficient evidence to the former premier to justify the invasion of Iraq, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday.

"It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force, and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had," he said.

Bingham noted Hans Blix, the former U.N. weapons monitor for Iraq, did not find evidence Iraq had a functional system to develop weapons of mass destruction and his inspection team was on the verge of closing its case on the country.

The baron said the coalition governments were bound by international law and its treaty obligations in considering the invasion of a sovereign country.

"If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the U.S., the U.K., and some other states was unauthorized by the Security Council, there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and the rule of law," he said.

Jack Straw, former foreign secretary and sitting justice secretary, countered the baron's arguments, however, saying his statements "do not, I am afraid, take proper account of the text of Security Council Resolution 1441, nor its negotiating history."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department missed a Tuesday deadline to hand over documents to a Senate judiciary committee concerning legal advice offered to President George Bush regarding the use of force in Iraq.