War is a nasty thing, horrible things happen to all parties involved but the end state is there is no substitute for victory or at least a facsimile of it. World leaders have started wars for less than ethical or even reasonable reasons through out history and will continue to do so. While I agree that the Iraq invasion was on completely false pretenses and that the planning for post invasion Iraq was woefully negligent I don't think any world leader is a "war criminal" for ordering military strikes/invasions even if it is for self serving reasons. Ordering military operations and unintended collateral damage simply don't equate to systematic genocide and intentional targeting of civilian populations in my opinion.

The idea of legality of an invasion seem completely based on what side of the berm you are on. The concept of a legal or illegal invasion just seem very paradoxical to me. I don't really take the UN seriously as any type of arbitrator of what is legal or illegal in a global sense. To me the entire orginization is a bit of a joke.

In regards to the number of civilian casualties suffered in Iraq I find any number that varies from 100k to 1 million to be in question. How many were actual combatants or simply killed by insurgents/terrorists? The truth is it is now doctrine for an adversary to use civilian populations as a shield for combat operations or mask for support operations when involved in an asymmetric war. Insurgencies get to pick the time, place and setting for attacks, so civilians continually find themselves in the middle of a gunfight. As long as militaries find themselves engaged in counterinsurgencies the enemy will always put civlians between themselves and the soldier. I never looked down my rifle at a combatant in Iraq or Afghanistan that was in anything that closely resembled anything other than the normal civilian garb. If you want to blame someone for civilian losses then blame the coward that chooses their homes to hide and fight from.

Lastly while I don't necessarily agree with the way the war in Afghanistan has been carried out I don't see how the invasion of it can be considered in anyway not justified considering it was the originating point for 9/11 and that the Taliban refused to give up Osama when asked.