Ding dong the murdering arsehole is dead

So, Saddam Hussein has been executed for the murder of 148 Shia muslims. Personally, I am against the death penalty (mainly because in places where it is still carried out, such as in America, it costs more to execute someone than to keep them in prison, and I don't think murdering bastards should have such a huge amount of money wasted on them) but in this case, I think the only pity is that he could only be hanged once.

That is not to say that I agree with the invasion of Iraq; far from it. I was studying International Law at the time of the invasion of Iraq under a highly esteemed professor who is one of the foremost international lawyers in the country. He had resigned from his position advising the government when they declared they were going to go to war. On top of that, a friend in the FCO recently told me that she had seen documents from her department being sent to N0. 10 outlining the lack of post invasion preparation and warning of years of insurgency and violence if these things were not planned properly. The response from No. 10 to these in depth documents? A scrawl on them saying 'thank you very much for your input.'

Nice to know that our government hadn't already made up their mind and were, in fact, interested in fully examining the situation.

Watching the reports today over the life of Saddam I was reminded again of how mistaken we were in going to war again in 2003. In my opinion, we should have finished the job off in the 1990s.

One could almost say that they were continuing the first gulf war the second time around, because they justified the use of force under UNSCR 678, 687 and 1441. But these resolutions did not provide a legal basis for invading Iraq. Indeed, the US ambassador to the UN said "this is not a smoking gun" and that they would need another resolution for the invasion to be legal under international law. Indeed, a further resolution was attempted by the Americans and the British, but this was not passed, essentially because it was based on what one could term a large streaming pile of dog poo.

Please note: I am not even going to get into a debate about international law as a concept. The US and the UK have signed up to it, and so I am approaching it from the angle of, sign up to it and stick to it until otherwise.

Furthermore, 678 and 687 were specific to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and so using these resolutions, which permitted the use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, is rather like using anti terror legislation to evict someone from their council house.

So, let's leave aside the resolutions - rather in the manner of our great leaders - and have a look at these weapons of mass destruction. 45 minutes, hey? Well, not according to Margaret Beckett the other day on the Today programme.. I am sure that it was mentioned in the dossier from 2002 which outlined the case for going to war? Wasn't that rather the whole premise of going to war? that Saddam Hussein was not only a threat to the region, but that on his ordered, WMD could be launched on the rest of the world and reach us in only 45 minutes.

It would have been nice, I suppose, if the weapons inspectors had been sent to Iraq to do a proper job, rather than as some fickle ornament, less meaningful than a trill on a top note in a Chopin nocture. But completely ignoring what the inspectors found (or didn't)was rather a bad move as surely people would raise more than eyebrows once they read the transcripts from the Security Council meetings?

Of course, when it was discovered that the whole 45 minute claim was a big, fat, lie then Dubba started talking about the importance of the invasion because of 'human rights'. Sorry, chaps, but
human rights comes under Chapter VII which does not permit military force to be used. As any fule kno.

So, essentially, under international law it was illegal. And it was unjust. And now the country will probably be split up because there is a civil war taking place.

But, hey. At least that murdering cunt is dead: every cloud has a silver lining!