>>Correct me if I'm wrong Evan. But the first golf war never actually ended. It was just a cease fire, much like the two Koreas. And weren't there resolutions written up by the UN that the war could continue if Iraq (Saddam) didn't live up to their part of the resolution?
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>The point is that despite issuing the resolutions, the UN did not agree with the US/UK going to war with Iraq. Because of this, you can't use the resolutions as reason why the war should have happened.

As background:

http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0686.htm
http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm

Insofar as neither resolution spells out what happens in case Iraq does not comply, then yes, neither can be used as reasons for the war.

But UN resolutions are lawyers' wet dreams when it comes to ambiguity. Check this out: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/0218sec.htm

I'll highlight the most important paragraph:

The world body does not keep track of which of the thousands of resolutions it has passed have been complied with, a U.N. spokesman said. "It's up to the members of the Security Council to decide whether or not a resolution has been implemented," he said. "That call is a political call, so if you were to poll the different members of the council, they would give you different versions."

Bring a statement like that in relief with the magnifying glass of the oil-for-food program. Companies in France, Russia, and the UN were making tons of dosh on that scam. Is it any wonder they didn't want us to stop the party?

(Yes, I know some US companies were implicated. But they were not major players.)