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The legal definition of a pre-emptive attack is attacking a nation who is JUST ABOUT to attack you (ie., attacking the Japanese fleet as it was en route to Pearl Harbor, for example). There was no evidence whatsoever that Iraq was doing anything like that, and in fact, the Bush admin never accused them of that (though Tony Blair almost did with his '45 minutes' statement that he's since retracted).
What Bush said he did to Iraq was a 'preventative attack', which means, "Someday, somehow, we think this country might attack us some day."
While there are provisions under international law that allow 'pre-emptive' attacks, there is NO, absolutely NO legal justification under international law for a preventative attack. The Iraq war was illegal under international law no matter how you look at it. It was a classic 'war of aggression' according to all the Nuremberg judges who are still alive. Kofi Anan also agreed it was an illegal war.
So no, we do not follow the law anymore (and since our own Constitution REQUIRES us to obey treaties that have been duly ratified by our Congress, we don't follow our own laws, either).
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