the Downing St. memos

[theknife]

M ichael Smith of the Sunday Times keeps on digging up more dirt:

June 26, 2005

General admits to secret air war
Michael Smith

THE American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.
Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 “carefully selected targets” before the war officially started.

obviously, a secret air war, conducted months before Bush went before Congress to get authorization to attack Iraq, would be illegal under international law and a violation of the US War Powers ACt.

The nine months of allied raids “laid the foundations” for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted bombardment of Iraqi positions.

If those raids exceeded the need to maintain security in the no-fly zones of southern and northern Iraq, they would leave President George W Bush and Tony Blair vulnerable to allegations that they had acted illegally.

you could argue it's a thin line between enforcing the no-fly zones in Iraq and bombing any target that might impede an invasion, but perhaps the general could clarify what the criteria was for the 391 "carefully selected targets". obviously, if these targets "laid the foundation" for the Allied victory, then it's more than a little disingenuous for the prez to continue to claim that war was a last resort.