Actually, the US worked to fabricate evidence in collaboration with the UK too. The UK had an expert produce the so called "dodgy dossier", that was used as Blair's justification to follow the US into their illegal war. The media called it out as obvious bullshit, then the guy that produced the report allegedly committed a timely suicide.

But the EU didn't join the war.

Thanks to France.

The EU does not have a foreign policy thus will never go to war. France has tried to boost their MIC as an alternative to the US and in doing so actively sought to damage US goals.

The EU doesn't ever go to war. Individual EU countries do.

The UK, Spain, Italy and a few other EU countries took part in the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (chemical) and they didnt find evidence of nuclear weapons outside the email trail inside their military.

It was not illegal

An invasion of another country that is neither carried out in self-defense against an imminent attack nor authorized by the UN Security Council is illegal under the UN Charter. This is one of the central principles of the modern international system.

> Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (chemical)

Even the US government admitted after the war that it could find no evidence of an Iraqi WMD program. All the US found were a few misplaced ancient, rusting artillery shells from the 1980s. These things were unusable, and were more of a danger to the people handling them than anything else. This is not the WMD stockpile the US claimed Saddam had. Nobody would ever have accepted to go to war on the basis of, "We think there are still a few misplaced, unusable artillery shells with degraded chemical agents in Iraq."

HN frowns on political commentary so I'll attempt to be brief

The vast majority of the most recent wars have not been UNSC authorized. UN involvement is not necessary for a war to occur nor do they prevent wars or proxy wars between countries on the UNSC. The "modern international system" is an ideal. The US was attacked.

>ancient, rusting artillery shells (from the 1980s)

20-30 years old isnt ancient, they were serviceable, and they had chemical weapons in the quantity for the potential of wmds. That is only what they found, and I imagine there were more not found.

>Nobody would ever have accepted to go to war

There was reasonable evidence they had more that the allied force didn't find. The international community is more to blame for the conditions after involvement than the instigators 10+ years on. A neighbor is beating up another neighbor and both are blaming it on someone else.

> The vast majority of the most recent wars have not been UNSC authorized.

Unless those wars are fought in imminent self-defense, then they're illegal. The invasion of Iraq was an especially egregious violation of international law for two reasons:

1. The US knew that the UN Security Council would reject a resolution authorizing war, so it decided in the end not to ask.

2. The war had catastrophic consequences for Iraq. It's not every day a country of 20+ million people is invaded and its government overthrown. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result.

A third factor making this war particularly egregious is the deliberate campaign of disinformation that was carried out in order to justify it.

> The US was attacked.

Not by Iraq.

> 20-30 years old isnt ancient, they were serviceable, and they had chemical weapons in the quantity for the potential of wmds.

This is how the NY Times described the small number of chemical artillery shells found scattered across Iraq:

> Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin. Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area, according to those who collected the majority of them.

These were the misplaced remnants of the chemical weapons program that Iraq dismantled in the 1990s.

> There was reasonable evidence they had more that the allied force didn't find.

The US occupied Iraq for nearly a decade. It's simply not credible to claim that there was any sort of sizeable stockpile that the US did not find.

last response

>> The US was attacked.

>Not by Iraq.

Saddam gave material assistance to suicide bombers and network. It would suggest had they not gotten rid of him some of the perpetrators would have tried again. The resulting catastrophe was the result of neighbors meddling in their affairs and an internal domestic power struggle.

>These were the misplaced remnants of the chemical weapons program that Iraq dismantled in the 1990s.

if it was dismantled it wouldn't exist.

>It's simply not credible to claim that there was any sort of sizeable stockpile that the US did not find.

it probably wasnt in Iraq anymore.

Source please.

The first hit for "dodgy dossier suicide" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)

Edit: I can't reply to the child but here are some salient quotes from the wiki...

"I will wait until the end of the week before judging – many dark actors playing games. Thanks for your support." - Dr Kelly

"it was subsequently established that neither the knife nor the blister packs showed Kelly's fingerprints on their surfaces"

"The former leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard, and the former Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Baker, both think Kelly was murdered.[173] In 2007 Baker published The Strange Death of David Kelly in which he argued that Kelly did not commit suicide."

That's a source that a man killed himself. It was suggested he was actually murdered by the Brit govt. Source for that claim?

I doubt you'll find a credible source - the security services are afterall very good at what they do. It's all circumstantial, but at the time you'd have been hard-pressed to find a single citizen who believed Kelly very conveniently killed himself at just the right time to prevent further damage to the government and their web of lies with the US.

I'm not sure I see what the theory is here. I could understand an argument that Kelly was killed to send a message, but it's hard to see what damage it could have prevented. If anything, his death confirmed the web of lies; the whole thing wouldn't have been a big deal if it were just a question of minor messaging details as the government was claiming.

It wasn't about sending message. The theory is that Kelly could have revealed he was told to fake evidence, and could have provided confirmation of who knew what, and importantly, when.

It was about timing too - it was a critical point for Blair and Bush getting the war they so desired. Keeping in mind there was already huge opposition to the war, proper 1st hand evidence being revealed at that point could well have resulted in Blair having to stand down, and potentially even the British not joining the war. Which of course the US services would not have liked.

The timeline's definitely not right for that. The British had already joined the war; Kelly died 4 months after the invasion.

Then I must concede that I am mis-remembering the timeline.

That's shit though. That can be said of anything. Moon landings were faked but the CIA is very good at what they do.

There is a bit of a difference - we have an abundance of evidence disproving the fake moon landing stories. OTOH, there were no witnesses of Kelly's death, and the timing was so very convenient - frankly, it's naive to think our security services wouldn't do this, especially with what was at stake. Keep in mind the the US and UK were fabricating evidence as justification for an illegal war. One that they knew would claim many, many casualties, and for which they must have known would end up destabilising the whole region and growing fundamentalists and terrorists (this was certainly obvious to many at the time).

I do see your point, mind, but I don't think such damning circumstantial evidence is "shit"; by that logic, MI6 could never be responsible for anything, unless of course they signed a confession.

From late 2002 to 2003, it was very much the international consensus that Iraq might have active WMD programs. The Security Council never authorized a war, but they did issue a unanimous resolution declaring that Iraq was in violation of its disarmament obligations and offering "a final opportunity to comply".

Many countries did also provide help, even though they knew the "single US regime" was likely to be lying & fabricating.

This regime has remained in power ever since Bush's 8 year reign of terror. In fact, they were in power even before George W. Bush's administration. The name of the president may change, but the people running the US war machine remain the same.