Human Rights Watch - Iraqi war justification doesn't wash

Haven't these guys heard of 9/11...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../20040126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/rights_report_iraq_2

Iraq War Not Humanitarian, Group Says
Mon Jan 26,11:53 AM ET

By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - The war in Iraq (news - web sites) cannot be justified as an intervention in defense of human rights even though it ended a brutal regime, Human Rights Watch said Monday, dismissing one of the Bush administration's main arguments for the invasion.

While Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had an atrocious human rights record and life has improved for Iraqis since his ouster, his worst actions occurred long before the war, the advocacy group said in its annual report. It said there was no ongoing or imminent mass killing in Iraq when the conflict began.


President Bush (news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) cited the threat from Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction as their main reason for attacking Iraq. But as coalition forces have failed to find evidence of such weapons, both leaders have also highlighted the brutality of the regime when justifying military intervention.


Human Rights Watch, however, rejected such claims.


"The Bush administration cannot justify the war in Iraq as a humanitarian intervention, and neither can Tony Blair," executive director Kenneth Roth said.


Atrocities such as Saddam's 1988 mass killing of Kurds would have justified humanitarian intervention, Roth said.


"But such interventions should be reserved for stopping an imminent or ongoing slaughter," he added. "They shouldn't be used belatedly to address atrocities that were ignored in the past."


The 407-page Human Rights Watch World Report 2004 also said the U.S. government was applying "war rules" to the struggle against global terrorism and denying terror suspects their rights. It suggested that "police rules" of law enforcement should be applied in such cases instead.
.
.
.

Main essay:
http://hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm#_Toc58744952