Syria attack: Number 10 insists strikes WERE legal after Corbyn sniping
NUMBER 10 has published documents outlining the case for airstrikes against Syria amid questions over the attack’s legality from Moscow and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
In a summary of the advice given by Attorney General Jeremy Wright to Prime Minister Theresa May, Downing Street pointed the finger at Moscow over its role in leading the UK and its allies to decide to launch an attack on Bashar Assad's regime.
It said international action to alleviate suffering caused by chemical weapons had been repeatedly blocked by Syria's allies.
Diplomatic action, sanctions, and the US strikes against the Shayrat airbase in April 2017 have failed to sufficiently degrade Syria's chemical weapons capability, the document added.
The paper said: ”There was no practicable alternative to the truly exceptional use of force to degrade the Syrian regime's chemical weapons capability and deter their further use by the Syrian regime in order to alleviate humanitarian suffering.”
UK ambassador to the UN Karen Pierce insisted the Government was "certain" of its legal case.
The No 10 paper said the UK met three demands under international law - that there is convincing evidence of extreme humanitarian distress, there is no practicable alternative to the use of force, and the action is necessary and proportionate - had been met.
It said: "In these circumstances, and as an exceptional measure on grounds of overwhelming humanitarian necessity, military intervention to strike carefully considered, specifically identified targets in order effectively to alleviate humanitarian distress by degrading the Syrian regime's chemical weapons capability and deterring further chemical weapons attacks was necessary and proportionate and therefore legally justifiable.
"Such an intervention was directed exclusively to averting a humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons, and the action was the minimum judged necessary for that purpose."
Russia has branded the strikes, which saw the UK, US and France join forces to fire more than 100 missiles on alleged chemical weapons facilities, “lawless”.
And Mr Corbyn said the military action was “legally questionable” and should have been debated in Parliament.
He said today: "Bombs won't save lives or bring about peace. This legally questionable action risks escalating further, as US defence secretary James Mattis has admitted, an already devastating conflict and therefore makes real accountability for war crimes and use of chemical weapons less, not more likely.
"Britain should be playing a leadership role to bring about a ceasefire in the conflict, not taking instructions from Washington and putting British military personnel in harm's way.
"Theresa May should have sought parliamentary approval, not trailed after Donald Trump. The Government should do whatever possible to push Russia and the United States to agree to an independent UN-led investigation of last weekend's horrific chemical weapons attack so that those responsible can be held to account."