Áreas de pesca dirigida al recurso tiburón

Iraq was pointed out as a state sponsor of terror by the United States in 1990 and it has maintained poor relations with the United States since the Gulf War (CNN, 2000-03-09). Tensions with the United States remained high throughout the 1990s. Operation Desert Fox was launched against Iraq in 1998 after Iraq failed to meet the demands of the

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Osman v United Kingdom, judgement of 28 October 1998, (2000) 29 EHRR 245, paragraph 115.

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'unconditional cooperation' in weapons inspections (CNN, 1998-12-16). After the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration claimed that Iraq was a threat to the United States, because Iraq could begin to use its alleged weapons of mass destruction to aid terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda (Schlager, 2005).

This motivated the administration of George W Bush to call upon the United Nations Security Council to send weapons inspectors to Iraq to find and destroy the alleged weapons of mass destruction (CNN, 2002-11-08). The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1441 was passed unanimously, which offered Iraq 'a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations' or face 'serious consequences'. This resolution did not authorise the use of force by member states. Saddam Hussein allowed UN inspectors access to Iraqi sites, while the US government continued to assert that Iraq was being obstructionist (News Hour, 2003).

The burden of proof was on Iraq to show that it had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Before the United Nations weapons inspectors had completed their inspections in Iraq, the United States assembled a 'coalition of the willing' to support the war against Iraq. Consequently, on 20 March 2003, the United States and its allies launched the invasion of Iraq. Iraq had violated 17 different UN resolutions since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, and routinely shot at United States and United Kingdom planes patrolling the no- fly zones (British House of Commons). The United States and its allies toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein on 1 May, 2003 (Whitehouse News Release, 2003).

The war continued against the United States and its allies by the sunni supporters. The

sunni loyalists saw themselves as fighting a religious war to liberate Iraq from foreign

non-Muslim occupiers (Crimes and Criminal Procedures). Statistics show that more than 3000 soldiers from the coalition have been killed or detained. A study by Johns Hopkins University also estimates that approximately 650 000 Iraqi civilians had been killed by July 2006 (Tavernises and McNeil, 2006).

Some member states of the US have criticised the idea of a 'War against Terrorism' with the argument that it is impossible to launch a war against a tactic. Their argument is that functionally a war is waged against tangible opponents such as the military force of a country (Carroll, 2004) (for example, against Germany in World War II). Also, because terrorism is difficult to define, the United Nations still does not have consensus on a definition for terrorism. Therefore the War against Terrorism has no uncontroversial meaning.

This criticism is largely based on the argument that 'one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter'. It should, however, be noted that since the 1960s the United States government has declared several 'wars' on intangible concepts. There has been the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the War on Inflation; Richard Nixon’s declared War on Cancer and a general War on Crime. These wars have led to a great increase in federal law.

The idea that the War against Terrorism intends to reduce or eliminate acts of terrorism, is rejected by a large number of critics. They point out that many terror 'suspects' are targeted without evidence (Socialism and Liberation, n.d), while known anti-Cuba terrorists such as Luis Posada Carrites and Roberto Ferro, are overlooked.

Arabic scholars have argued that the Iraq War (War on Terrorism) will polarise and anger the Arab world, creating new groups (other than the Taliban and Al-Qaeda) of Islamic extremists who will cause a new wave of terrorist attacks. The message of the War on Terrorism to extremists and terrorists may well be that conventional forces cannot do serious damage to the United States and its allies, but that irregular forces such as suicide bombers, can.

An important question that needs to be answered is whether the quality of nation building in Iraq is more important than the military outcome. Once the United States and Britain leave Iraq, no oil deals made by them can survive, unless the Iraqis feel that those deals benefit their own country.

The lesson in this 'War on Terrorism' and the invasion of Iraq is that it seems to be a solution to one of the problems in the entire Middle East region. The events of September 11 did not start the problems in the Middle-East, it merely accelerated it, and the war on terrorism forced it to a point beyond return. Therefore, the task is to establish Human Rights norms and to find adequate means to enforce them.

To understand this clearly, the thesis will investigate whether human rights are still a fundamental part of democratic politics, since human rights define the boundary between individual freedom and government tyranny. This study will also evaluate the impact of the war on terrorism on human rights, as well as investigate the counter- terrorism strategy.

A number of scholars argue that war is necessary in defence of liberal democracy, while others assert that it is time to move away from the war model towards a new paradigm based on respect for human rights for all (Doyal, 2001). This will also be investigated.

2.3 The three terrorist attacks that initiated the War on Terrorism