(UK) Miliband: we had to invade Iraq to preserve UN credibility

[sabra]

Source: UK Times Online

The authority of the United Nations would have been “severely dented” if Britain and the US had not followed through threats to Saddam Hussein with military action, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband said today.

Testifying before Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry, Mr Miliband also said that Britain should not draw the "wrong lesson" from the Iraq war despite the massive international ructions it caused.

"The wrong lesson would be that Britain should leave international engagement to others," he said. "We must not be a country that turns our back on the world — because if we do we will be much poorer as a result, in all senses of the word."

Mr Miliband was an Education Minister at the time of the Iraq invasion in March 2003 and did not take over at the Foreign Office until Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article7053855.ece

[HeresyLives]

1. Another prat. Sigh.

[Solly Mack]

2. ROFLMAO

Damn

[mac56]

3. Huge misfire.

Trying to justify the Iraq invasion by invoking UN authority?!

Most everyone who supported the Iraq invasion don't give a rat's ass about the UN or its authority.

Straws, grasping at.

[AlbertCat]

6. Say... wasn't it the UN inspectors that found NO WMD?

And that "coalition of the willing" was a veritable who's who of the UN!

[ezmerelda39]

4. Sorry excuse....

That is the sorriest excuse yet. Even Bush/Cheney and crowd would have to snicker over that one.

[yava]

12. The UN left Iraq shortly after the start of the war...

when their headquarters were destroyed by insurgents and their Brazilian chief and many others died.
That removed ant pretension that the ward was conducted under UN authority.

[sakabatou]

5. Yeah fucking right. Such a BS excuse.

[Downwinder]

7. Shades of Troy. Go to war to save face. n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. The 'right' lesson is: don't make up intelligence to justify an invasion

and if any of your allies have done so, don't pretend that 'UN credibility' depends on listening to the lies. If you're concerned abotu the UN, then listen to its inspectors who say "nope, no WMD here".

[Wizard777]

9. The UN's mission is preserve PEACE not credibility. Epic fail!

[Wizard777]

10. Now we have to put people like him in jail forever to preserve the UN's Credibility. The UK's too!

[Bragi]

11. Do these guys bring their own laugh track with them? /nt

[No Elephants]

13. "We will be much poorer...in ALL senses of the word." In other words, war for $$.

Probably the only true thing he said.