Bush Republican types would call some British politicians fuddy-duddies, afraid to take masculine action against an alleged enemy. Despite Tony Blair remaining a loyal sound-bite away from George W. Bush on the war on Iraq, the gutsy opposition in the British Parliament invokes the requirement of legal procedure when it comes to making war on another country and its people. Please read below to see how Britain remains a nation of laws and of legal procedures, and doesn't give carte blanche to its leader, as if he were a dictator, even though that leader was elected.

War is too important a decision for a Prime Minister to make. Or for a president.

Dale Reynolds
London

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1510847,00.html

RAF bombing raids on Iraq no-fly zone defied Foreign Office legal advice, say Lib Dems

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday June 21, 2005
The Guardian

Ministers were last night asked to explain the circumstances in which the RAF participated in a spectacular increase in bombing raids on Iraq in apparent defiance of Foreign Office legal advice."It did not take very much to work out that the increase in bombing bore no relation to the protection of Iraqi citizens in the north or the south of the country," Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said referring to the ostensible reason for the "no-fly" zones. He told the Guardian: "The obvious explanation was that air defences were being degraded deliberately and that any provocation by the Iraqi military would be met with a disproportionate response".

He added: "The real question here is who authorised action by the RAF in contradiction of the Foreign Office legal advice? Whoever it was bears a serious responsibility. This is precisely the kind of issue which ought to have been explored in an inquiry into the workings of government before and during the war against Iraq."After months of inactivity, RAF bombers dropped nearly 5 tonnes of bombs on Iraq in May 2002, the time the US decided to lay the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq.In September 2002, the RAF dropped more than 20 tonnes of bombs, according to official figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.The figures show a further sharp increase in US-UK bombing between November 2002 and January 2003, two months before the invasion, although separate figures for the RAF are not available.Escalation of the bombing appears to reflect the determination to weaken the Iraqi regime, although leaked documents show that the Foreign Office strongly advised against regime change as an objective of military action. FO documents dated March 2002 note that the "no-fly zones" were not established by any UN security council resolution.US and UK aircraft were entitled to use force only "in self-defence", the FO advised.