UNITED NATIONS, 17 September 2004 — The US decision to go to war in Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council was “illegal,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the BBC.

“I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time — without UN approval and much broader support from the international community,” he said in an interview Wednesday with the BBC World Service.

The UN Charter allows nations to take military action with Security Council approval as an explicit enforcement action, such as during the Korean War and the 1991 Gulf War. But in 2003, in the build-up to the Iraq War, the United States dropped an attempt to get a Security Council resolution approving the invasion when it became apparent that it would not pass.

At the time, Annan had underlined the lack of legitimacy for a war without UN approval, saying: “If the United States and others were to go outside the Security Council and take unilateral action they would not be in conformity with the Charter.”

On Wednesday, after being asked three times whether the lack of Council approval for the war meant it was illegal, he went a step further and told the BBC: “From our point of view and the (UN) Charter point of view it was illegal.” Annan also said the wave of violence engulfing Iraq put in doubt the national elections scheduled for January. There could not be “credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now,” he told the BBC.

Reactions to Annan’s comments were on expected lines. British Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said “we spelt out at the time our reasons for believing the conflict in Iraq was indeed lawful and why we believed it was necessary to uphold those UN resolutions.” Hewitt conceded on BBC radio that there was disagreement between international lawyers over the war’s legality. She said she respected Annan’s views on the matter and regretted the fact the government disagreed with him.

In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister John Howard not only rejected Annan’s remarks but slammed the United Nations as a “paralyzed” body, incapable of acting on major crises, like the current one in Sudan’s Darfur region. The invasion was “entirely valid” legally, Howard said. “That was a legal opinion we obtained from the relevant people in Australia. There had been a series of Security Council resolutions.”

US President George W. Bush did not comment directly on Annan’s remarks, but said that he had no regrets. “I was hoping diplomacy would work, “ Bush said at a campaign appearance in the US state of Minnesota. “Knowing what I know today even though we haven’t found the stockpiles of weapons we thought were there, I’d still make the same decision. America and the world are safer with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell.”

Poland joined Britain in pointing to previous UN resolutions to justify the war. But many other European countries declined to comment — including Romania, which has 700 troops in Iraq, and Germany, one of the strongest opponents of the war.

Spain, whose current government opposed the war, said Annan’s comments came as no surprise. “It’s what Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has been saying for the past year and a half, as premier and before that as leader of the opposition,” said government spokesman Javier Valenzuela.

France shied away from commenting on Annan’s statement. “You know our position,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said when asked to comment.