The Sunday Times of London is reporting that the British Foreign Ministry’s Legal office ruled that the sharp increase in the US and British no-fly zone bombings of Iraq in the year leading up to the official invasion was illegal under international law. The paper says the advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later the US and Britain began “spikes of activity” designed to degrade Iraq’s defensive capabilities and in an effort to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the US a pretext for war. The Foreign Office said that the bombings were “not consistent with” UN law, despite US claims that they were. In the so-called Downing Street memo, British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon is quoted as saying in July 2002 that the US had already begun spikes in bombing.