Attacking Iraq is illegal

["Kessaissia, Mazine" <mazine.kessaissia@mail.utexas.edu>]

A former UN aid coordinator to Iraq on Tuesday said Baghdad posed no immediate 
threat to the international community, labeling any unilateral US action 
against the country illegal.

Neither documents released by the US nor British governments "provide any 
evidence whatsoever of the imminence of an international threat posed by the 
Iraqi government," said Hans von Sponeck.

The German diplomat resigned two years ago from his post as head of the "oil 
for food" program in protest at the sanctions on Iraq, which he said were 
hitting the Iraqi population rather than the government.

Von Sponeck urged Denmark as the holder of the rotating European Union 
presidency to persuade other members that any unilateral US attack would be 
illegal.

"The Iraq policy of the US administration has little to do with the return of 
UN arms inspectors," he said. "It has everything to do with a US determination 
to introduce a regime change in Baghdad and the longer-term interest in 
retaining US control of energy resources in the Middle East."

The US administration, he added, was causing mass hysteria, saying the "psycho 
war" was unacceptable.