74 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 75
The same criminality of aggression applies to
the US and UK governments, which invaded
Iraq 20 years ago today. Among the most
senior perpetrators were Rice and Brown
I
t goes beyond hypocrisy. It’s an assault
on memory. Gordon Brown, calling for a
special tribunal to punish the Russian
government, correctly states that an act
of aggression – invading another nation
– was identified by the Nuremberg tribunal as
“the supreme international crime”. It is, he
wrote in the Guardian, not just Vladimir Putin
who should be prosecuted, but also his
“henchmen”. These include members of the
Russian and perhaps Belarusian national
security councils, and a range of political and
military leaders. All should be held to account
for this “manifestly illegal war”, he wrote on his
website.
which, as Brown points out, its senior ocials
are complicit. The same applies to the US and
UK governments, which invaded Iraq 20 years
ago today. Among the most senior perpetrators
were Rice and Brown.
The seventh of the Nuremberg Principles,
which Brown cites in calling for Russian
prosecutions, points out that “complicity” in a
war of aggression “is a crime under international
law”. Both ocials would clearly qualify as
complicit. Rice was one of the architects of the
war. Brown, as a cabinet member, was party to
the decision. As Chancellor of the Exchequer,
he financed the war.
No one can credibly deny that the invasion of
Iraq met the Nuremberg definition. The Chilcot
inquiry, whose terms were set by Brown when
he was Prime Minister, was forbidden to
The hypocrisy of US
and UK war criminality
Yes, Putin and his henchmen should be
prosecuted for war crimes. So should those
who led the invasion of Iraq
By George Monbiot
Condoleezza Rice, who was George W Bush’s
national security adviser, was asked of Russia’s
aggression on Fox News, “when you invade a
sovereign nation, that is a war crime?” She
replied: “It is certainly against every principle
of international law and international order.”
Brown and Rice are right about Russia. Its
government, in invading Ukraine, has clearly
committed the crime of aggression, a crime in
INTERNATIONAL