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Lord Peter Goldsmith and the legal advice row - and the BAE row
"..The recently published advice from the Attorney-General confirms what most people suspected. Mr Blair could not have won Cabinet and parliamentary support for the war in March 2003 without two crucial pieces of publicisable information. One was that Saddam posed an "imminent" threat, the other that an invasion not backed by the UN was still legal. When he read Lord Goldsmith's March 7 opinion, which was unequivocally hostile to the war, he knew it had to be changed. .." Simon Jenkins April 29 2005 military chiefs asked, on March 13 2003, for a definitive statement about the legality of the war in Iraq
Philippe Sands QC, an international law professor, suggests in his book Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules that Lord Goldsmith had warned Tony Blair in a document on 7 March 2003 that the use of force against Iraq could be illegal. The government even prepared a legal team to be able to defend its case, if legal action was taken against the UK over the war.
On 10 March, military chiefs asked for a definite statement about the legality of the war and on 13 March Lord Goldsmith met Lord Falconer and Downing Street adviser Baroness Morgan. "After that Downing Street proceeded to set out his [Lord Goldsmith's] view in a parliamentary answer which was then published on 17 March," said Mr Sands.June 13 2007 ~ BAE: "....for Goldsmith, the inquiry had discovered the government's own fingerprints all over the disbursements from the Bank of England."
Simon Jenkins in the Guardian ".....Goldsmith announced last December that the SFO's head, Robert Wardle, had spontaneously recalled his investigators from Switzerland for "reasons of national security". Goldsmith briefed that the £2m investigation, which he had approved, was collapsing for lack of evidence. This is now seen as the reverse of the truth. The inquiry was called off for gathering too much incriminating evidence, after frantic lobbying by the prime minister. This indicated that BAE's protestations of innocence were untrue. Bandar's "commission" went way beyond Trade Department protocols stipulating that no more than 5% of a contract value be paid to "local agents". Far worse for Goldsmith, the inquiry had discovered the government's own fingerprints all over the disbursements from the Bank of England.
Panorama revealed that the Ministry of Defence specifically processed, and may still be processing, quarterly invoices for £30m to Bandar. It so happens that the head of the relevant MoD sales unit, Alan Garwood, is a former BAE executive. He reports to Lord Drayson, the arms sales minister, who gave Labour £500,000 within weeks of being made a life peer in 2004 and described himself as "entrepreneur-in-residence" at the Said Business School in Oxford. Wafic Said was Bandar's aide in negotiating al-Yamamah and is assumed to figure among its many beneficiaries. That Blair should have made Drayson political overseer of the Bandar payments cannot be a coincidence.
As the onion skins peel back, al-Yamamah emerges as not a defence contract at all but a vehicle for financial "skimming" by rich Saudis (and Britons such as Mark Thatcher). While British governments could argue that before the 1998 convention such payments were legal, that has not been so since and they were specifically outlawed in 2001. Whitehall has been complicit in a colossal, secret and illegal act of bribery to win a grossly inflated contract. That is why Goldsmith had to suppress the SFO inquiry and why BAE dare not let Lord Woolf near the stinking trough. And Blair has the gall to call the press cynical."June 12, 2007 ~".....Last night as Lib-Dem politicians renewed their questioning, Lord Goldsmith remained silent on whether he had advised that information about the Bandar payments be concealed from the OECD - the world's anti-corruption organisation.
Robert Wardle, head of the SFO, says that he himself took the decision to withhold the facts from the OECD on the grounds of "national security". This followed meetings with Lord Goldsmith's staff and MOD officials. Lord Goldsmith insists that he did not personally give the order, but has not so far disassociated himself from it. Lord Goldsmith is responsible for the SFO to parliament, and played a key role in the termination of the SFO's inquiry into allegations about the Saudi contract..." Read article in the Guardian
June 11, 2007 ~ "BAE's bid to derail the inquiry was backed up by the prime minister himself, by John Reid, the defence secretary, and Jack Straw, the foreign secretary. It was an extraordinary piece of high-level bullying.
At the SFO, Wardle pointed out that the OECD convention [profile] forbade commercial excuses for bribery. He hinted he might resign.
Goldsmith decided to back him. BAE then reluctantly began to disgorge boxes of files, and the contents soon led SFO investigators to set off for Santiago, Bucharest, Johannesburg, Prague and Dar es Salaam. The SFO's key discovery, however, was that as well as the £60m Saudi slush fund, £1bn may have gone into Swiss accounts linked, among others, to two intermediaries for the Saudi royals......Tony Blair called in Goldsmith and insisted that "national security" could be said to be at stake [document], rather than simply commercial interests. M16, however, refused to tell the OECD that they "agreed with [this] assessment"...." GuardianNovember 5 2006 ~ Fury at Goldsmith vow to advise on Blair loan charge
Sunday Telegraph "Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, was under intense and growing pressure last night to stand down from advising on whether Tony Blair should be charged in the "cash for honours" affair.
Senior legal figures and opposition MPs said it would be "entirely improper" for Lord Goldsmith to play any role in deciding the Prime Minister's fate after it emerged that he is to advise prosecutors over possible criminal charges.
Critics believe there is a startling potential conflict of interest in his handling a case that could lead to the prosecution of both high-ranking Labour and Tory officials.
Lord Goldsmith, 56, a former donor to the Labour Party, is a close political ally of Mr Blair. Made a life peer by the Prime Minister in 1999, he was appointed Attorney General by Mr Blair in 2001.
But critics have questioned his impartiality. His advice on the legality of invading Iraq in 2003 sparked huge controversy when it appeared to change after he sought Mr Blair's view on whether Saddam Hussein was in breach of United Nations resolutions.
Lord Carlile, QC, a leading lawyer who heads a watchdog on anti-terrorism law, called on Lord Goldsmith to distance himself from the case...."November 5 2006 ~ Goldsmith defies police in honours case
Independent on Sunday "A clash between police investigating the cash for honours affair and the Government escalated last night after the Attorney General reserved his right to veto a prosecution.
Detectives are said to have growing confidence that they have established a trail linking the granting of peerages to the raising of funds. But senior police figures are reportedly worried at the involvement of Lord Goldsmith, Tony Blair's close ally, in the decision whether to prosecute the Prime Minister......
The shadow Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, said he would be "staggered" if Lord Goldsmith personally took the decision to prosecute fellow politicians. "I think it is inevitable that he will not be able to take these decisions himself," said Mr Grieve.
Angus MacNeil, the Scottish Nationalist MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, who triggered the complaint, has said it would be "both foolish and unforgivable" for Lord Goldsmith to be involved in this particular case, given his close links to the Prime Minister. ".... The police, as far as I have seen, have run a very professional investigation. This ethic, it would seem, could be compromised by the chief law officer for England and Wales, the Attorney General himself. Lord Goldsmith was made a peer by Tony Blair in 1999, just two years before becoming Attorney General...."26 May 2006 ~ Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said : "There is nothing here to indicate that there were any new facts or intelligence on Iraqi WMD, or any new legal arguments, to justify the attorney general's change of mind.
The irresistible implication is that the change of mind was the result of political pressure."
" Papers pinpoint law chief's change of heart over war " by David Leigh and Rob Evans in the Guardian"........ The existence of documents which pinpoint the moment when the government's leading law officer changed his mind over the legality of the invasion of Iraq was disclosed yesterday.
The documents record that Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, told his officials on March 13 2003 he had changed his mind "after further reflection" and accepted Washington's claim that the invasion would be legal.
This latest evidence was released following an intervention by Richard Thomas, the freedom of information commissioner. Lord Goldsmith's change of heart followed a warning the previous day from the treasury solicitor, head of the government legal service, who said civil servants could not work on the invasion without clear legal authorisation. The chief of defence staff had already demanded similar legal cover for his troops.
After Lord Goldsmith agreed to change his previous advice Lady Sally Morgan, a Downing Street aide, wrote an internal email saying Lord Goldsmith was now willing to "make clear in the course of the week that there is a sound legal basis for action". A short statement was then made to Parliament.
But the government still refuses to publish the text of these documents, the Morgan email and the treasury solicitor's minute of his conversation with Lord Goldsmith. Mr Thomas has stepped back from a confrontation with Downing Street over a raft of freedom of information requests which were submitted to him by MPs, the media and the public a year ago as the controversy escalated. Whitehall has instead published an agreed narrative of events based on the files.
Mr Thomas has allowed the government to withhold the actual text of all its documents, apart from the already-leaked text of Lord Goldsmith's original advice. That advice, on March 7, did not support the US claim that an invasion could be allowed even without a second UN resolution to authorise it. Instead, Lord Goldsmith originally advised it would be "safer" to obtain a second resolution. He was not confident a court would back an invasion otherwise.
He was concerned whether existing evidence on Iraq's non-compliance was "sufficiently compelling" to be adequate. After Lord Goldsmith changed his mind, the existence of his original 13-page advice was suppressed. Tony Blair wrote Lord Goldsmith a letter at his request saying: "It is unequivocally the prime minister's view that Iraq has committed further material breaches," in developing weapons of mass destruction. This claim was later discovered to be false.
In contrast to the attorney general's willingness to change his advice, the Foreign Office's deputy legal adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned in protest the day after Lord Goldsmith's statement was made to Parliament. She said the original legal opinion had been the opposite.
Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said : "There is nothing here to indicate that there were any new facts or intelligence on Iraqi WMD, or any new legal arguments, to justify the attorney general's change of mind.
The irresistible implication is that the change of mind was the result of political pressure."
Philippe Sands QC, who in his book Lawless World said Mr Blair had promised George Bush that he would back the Iraq invasion, regardless of the legal situation, said yesterday: "It confirms the account I presented: that the attorney general changed his mind and that he did so in the absence of any new legal arguments or any new facts as to Iraq's possession of WMD."2nd/3rd February 2006 ~ "Lord Goldsmith warned Tony Blair that Britain, if it went ahead, could be challenged in the international criminal court. Ten days later, he said a second resolution was not necessary..." The Guardian on the war memo revealed in the new edition of Lawless World Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colours to lure Saddam into war. at a pre-war meeting in January 2003 at which they discussed plans to begin military action on 10 March 2003, irrespective of whether the United Nations had passed a new resolution authorising the use of force. All the details at: http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/whitehouse_meeting_memo.html
"......The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College, London. Professor Sands last year exposed the doubts shared by Foreign Office lawyers about the legality of the invasion in disclosures which eventually forced the prime minister to publish the full legal advice given to him by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith...." Read in full
27th November 2005 ~ "We know from past leaks that Goldsmith's advice on invading Iraq was so unpalatable to Blair that he had to change it. His independence was utterly compromised...." Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times
"...... He is dragging David Keogh, a former civil servant, and Leo O'Connor, a former political aide, before the Bow Street magistrates for allegedly leaking a memo to the Daily Mirror. As Tulkinghorn would intone, "The reputation of one of England's noblest families is at stake." The name of the Blairs must be protected at all costs.
Goldsmith risks going down in history as the most miserable holder of his Janus-faced office. He is supposedly an "independent law officer" and adviser to the government (as over Iraq). Yet he also enjoys the patronage of the prime minister as his private legal counsel (as over Iraq). The conflict of interest is glaring. ..." Read in full23rd November 2005 ~"double attack on the freedom of the press and freedom of information"
The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith has threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act and the Contempt of Court Act if they publish details of a leaked document referred to by the Mirror yesterday in which, at a White House summit on April 16 last year, Mr Bush apparently told Mr Blair that he wanted to target Al Jazeera. U.S. forces in Iraq were launching a major assault on Fallujah at the time. The Mirror quoted an "unnamed government official" suggesting Bush's threat was a joke but added another unidentified source saying the U.S. president was serious.
The Guardian reports:"NUJ secretary, Jeremy Dear. "These sort of attempts to stifle uncomfortable revelations printed in a newspaper, which is only carrying out its proper duty to inform the British public, does the government of what is supposed to be a democracy no credit whatsoever. "What we need in this country is free and open debate and a proper political dialogue over important issues of this sort, not a knee-jerk panic reaction."
Reuters reminds us that "In 2001, the station's Kabul office was hit by U.S. bombs and in 2003 Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a U.S. strike on its Baghdad office. The United States has denied deliberately targeting the station."
18 November 2005
~ "the full advice of the attorney general of March 7 2003. Far from being unequivocal, it is full of legal riders and cautionary statements:the language of resolution 1441 "leaves the position unclear", "arguments can be made on both sides", and "the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of force". Further, he advised that the government should "consider extremely carefully whether the evidence of non-cooperation and non-compliance by Iraq is sufficiently compelling to justify the conclusion that Iraq has failed to take its final opportunity"...." From an article in the Guardian by Paul Shiner, a solicitor acting for Military Families Against the War
14 August 2005 ~ Sunday Times ".......No 10 intervened at a crucial time.
It has admitted that an aide reporting to Tony Blair sent confidential e-mails relating to the advice just days before Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, issued a summary version of his legal advice which stated unequivocally that the war was legal.
His original advice, issued 10 days earlier on March 7, 2003 warned that a decision to go to war could be challenged in the international courts.
Until now the government has maintained that Goldsmith was left to get on with his work during this crucial 10-day period without political interference from Downing Street.
Last week, however, Downing Street admitted to The Sunday Times that during that period Baroness Morgan, until recently Blair's director of government relations, sent e-mails "relating" to the legal advice. It is not clear to whom they were directed.
No 10 says that it will not release the e-mails ....." read in full
3 July 2005 ~ In the memo, Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, stated "that the desire for regime change was not a legal basis for military action..."
".. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult." UNSCR 1205 demands "full and immediate compliance by Iraq with its obligations under Resolution 687..." In other words, we are definitely attacking Iraq and we need a justification which at the moment seems problematic..." Counterpunch
17/19 June 2005 ~ "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The Downing Street memo is likely to shed more light than anything else on the preparations Downing Street made to support the Iraq war. Jack Straw, who knew that justifiction was "thin" proposed giving Saddam an ultimatum to allow in U.N. weapons inspectors, provoking a confrontation that would "help with the legal justification for the use of force."
The White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, was reduced to using the old our focus is not on the past. It's on the future and working to make sure we succeed .... line when asked whether the White House was ever going to respond to a letter from Republican John Conyers (D-Mich.) and signed by 88 of his colleagues asking for information about the memo. See extract and read the Downing Street MemoMay 26 2005 ~ The Attorney General speaks
Jon Snow of Channel 4 News writes in the update email: "Sorry to burden you, but Lord Goldsmith has finally broken his silence over the legality of the war on Iraq for the first time since Channel 4 News forced its publication in the last week of the General election campaign. We have of course been seeking to speak to the Attorney General about his legal advice - day after day after day we have been requesting an interview with him. But day after day after day comes the response, no thanks.
Today though he has spoken - in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. And there's one thing he said there that caught my eye. Until today it's always been the Attorney General's position that what was set out in his Parliamentary answer on 17th may 2003 was a summary of his legal advice - indeed, the position was that the answer was the only summary of his legal advice. But hang on - today he tells the Telegraph it wasn't a summary at all. Just to be clear about this, here's the quotes:On November 6th 3003 (Hansard) he says of that written answer: "This was a summary of the legal position. rather than a detailed consideration of the legal issues"
And today he tells the Daily Telegraph: "I never said it was a summary. But it was a correct statement of my conclusion".
The issue about whether this was or was not a summary of the legal advice goes to the very heart of Lord Goldmith's role in issuing an advice with which practically the entire UK legal establishment disagreed.
It goes to the heart of whether he changed his mind radically in the space of ten days for no apparent legal reason; and it goes to the heart of whether Downing Street leant on him to change his advice.
(Doubtless Lord Goldsmith will want to listen to the Telegraph's tape of his interview, as he did with his session for Lord Butler's inquiry when the confidential transcript appeared to show that his final legal advice had been put together by Mr Blair's political advisor Sally Morgan and his then sentencing minister, Lord Falconer. That was then rejected when the tape of his Butler interview was said to have been checked and found to have been transcribed in error. Incidentally we have requested Lord Butler's tape under the Freedom of Information Act.)
Britain's leading academic expert on UK governance, Professor Peter Hennesey, damned Lord Goldsmith for what he castigated as his weakness and failure of integrity. In the Telegraph interview Lord Goldsmith has clearly been stung by the criticism and clearly wants people to take his words at face value. As the quotes above show, we are in the position tonight of having him question the Parliamentary record of his own view on his legal advice.
Naturally we have asked him to talk to us and clarify matters. He has declined."May 17 2005 ~...the replacement of cabinet government with a new quasi-presidential form of decision-making.
It now appears that it was American legal arguments that helped to convince the attorney general to conclude that a reasonable case could be made to proceed to war in Iraq without an explicit resolution by the UN security council.... " the (post election) MISHCON LECTURE 2005 by Philippe Sands Lawless World: International Law after 9/11 and Iraq is fascinating to read in full. Here you may read it on a web page instead of as a pdf file at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/mishcon/
May 4 2005 ~ "Blair and Britain's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith will be dragged down with him." Sir Michael Boyce
Linda Heard in Counterpunch ".....Naturally, the man who led those troops into Iraq, then Chief of Defense Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, is worried. Furthermore, due to the unraveling of the case for the war's legality, he is an angry man, telling the Observer that if he were to go down then Blair and Britain's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith will be dragged down with him. The current furor has been triggered by the following leaks, which go a long way to proving the Prime Minister's aim was regime change in Iraq - illegal under international law and the UN constitution. They further show that there was a conspiracy between Blair and his closest aides to massage public opinion by exaggerating intelligence on WMD and worse, leaving cabinet members and parliament out of the true picture...." Read in full
May 2 2005 ~ Was it always about regime change?
(See Independent)
- "If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work."
Tony Blair in leaked minutes to a July 2002 meeting with military and intelligence- "The ending of this regime would be the cause of regret for no one other than Saddam. But our purpose is disarmament. No one wants military conflict. Disarmament of all WMD is the demand."
Blair at Commons debate, September 2002- "If Saddam Hussein co-operates, if he's serious about disarmament, then he can stay in power ... But if you do go to war it is not just a question of lives being lost. If it leads to the removal of a dictator who runs his country like a butcher's shop then lives will be saved as well."
Blair's official spokesman, February 2003- "I must stress that the lawfulness of military action depends not only on the existence of a legal basis, but also on the question of proportionality... Regime change cannot be the objective of military action."
Lord Goldsmith's advice to Blair in March 2003
(Today's Iraq Leak news)May 1 2005 ~ Secret Downing Street memo - Sunday Times
".... Boyce was never shown Goldsmith's more equivocal advice to Blair of March 7, 2003, and says today ministers failed to give him protection from prosecution at the International Criminal Court. "I have always been troubled by the ICC," he says, adding that if British servicemen are put on trial, ministers should be "brought into the frame as well". Asked if that should include Blair and Goldsmith, he tells The Observer: "Too bloody right." ..." read in full
May 1 2005 ~ ".....On March 21, Goldsmith himself contradicted his earlier assertion.
He changed his position to Greenwood being retained to assist "in relation to legal issues arising from the Iraq conflict, but was not instructed to advise on whether military action would be lawful". The parliamentary denials of war advice from Greenwood were repeated on April 4 and April 6. A written parliamentary answer on March 21 of this year states that as of March this year, Greenwood has been paid £46,000 (excluding VAT) for "professional services in relation to work connected with the conflict in Iraq". Greenwood has since explained in detail the position he advocated. He said Iraq was held to be in breach of its ceasefire obligations. "The legal basis for military action thus existed without the need for a further resolution. The [UN Security] Council nevertheless gave Iraq a final opportunity' to comply, saying that serious consequences' would follow if it failed to do so. That Iraq did not take that opportunity was demonstrated by the successive reports of the UN weapons inspectors."
But who held Iraq to be in breach? ..." Tom Shields in the Sunday Herald. Read in fullMay 1 2005 ~ "......As a civil service briefing paper specifically prepared for the July meeting reveals, Blair had made his fundamental decision on Saddam when he met President George W Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002.
"When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April," states the paper, "he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change."
Blair set certain conditions: that efforts were first made to try to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) through weapons inspectors and to form a coalition and "shape" public opinion. But the bottom line was that he was signed up to ousting Saddam by force if other methods failed. The Americans just wanted to get rid of the brutal dictator, whether or not he posed an immediate threat.
This presented a problem because, as the secret briefing paper made clear, there were no clear legal grounds for war.
"US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community," says the briefing paper. "Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law." ..." Sunday Times. Read in fullApril 29 2005 ~ Blair's spectacular U-turn on legal advice leaves unanswered questions
Independent " ......On a dramatic day, dubbed "Wobbly Thursday" at Labour HQ, Mr Blair again saw his election campaign derailed by Iraq. He gambled that, by revealing the memo he has repeatedly refused to publish, Labour would be able to return to the economy and public services before the election. He feared that, after two partial leaks in the past week, the Attorney General's full report would be disclosed early next week. ....... Labour officials fear it could cost the party dozens of marginal seats. Last night, there was little sign Mr Blair's attempt to "clear the decks" had calmed the storm. Anti-war MPs claimed that the Commons, and even the Cabinet, might not have backed the conflict if they had been told of Lord Goldsmith's doubts. They said there was still no explanation why he changed his mind in the 10 days that elapsed between his two reports...." Read in full
27 April 2005 ~ Reuters: Wednesday April 27, 08:39 PM
Blair's lawyer advised Iraq war could be illegal
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair's lawyer expressed doubts on whether war in Iraq was legal ten days before he gave the green light for invasion, according to official documents cited by Channel Four television on Wednesday. The issue could haunt Blair, who faces an election on May 5. His opponents have charged that he covered up the government's initial legal advice to make the case for war. ... "I remain of the opinion that the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of force," Goldsmith wrote. The argument that earlier resolutions authorised war "will only be sustainable if there are strong factual grounds for concluding that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity. In other words, we would need to be able to demonstrate hard evidence of non-compliance and non-cooperation." Ten days later, after Britain failed to obtain a new resolution, Goldsmith presented the cabinet with a single page "summary" of his advice in which he said conclusively that the war was legal and mentioned no doubts. ..... Blair has insisted that Goldsmith never changed his mind. "I don't accept that at all," he told Sky Television in an interview taped just two hours before Channel Four published the text of the attorney general's initial advice. "It (the advice) didn't change."27 April 2005 ~ Channel 4 News has obtained a copy of the summary of the confidential legal advice written by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith
and sent to the Prime Minister on March 7th, two weeks before the war with Iraq. .."The warnings Blair refused to publish." ...read in full
25 April 2005 ~ "Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was also under pressure over Iraq during furious exchanges yesterday with John Humphrys, presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
When Mr Humphrys accused him of putting up "smokescreens" to avoid answering questions about Lord Goldsmith's advice, the Foreign Secretary snapped: "I have dealt with this. Keep your hair on." When the Foreign Secretary tried to refer back to UN Security Council resolution 1441, which gave Saddam Hussein a final opportunity to disarm, Mr Humphrys cut him off, saying: "No, that isn't the issue." ...." Independent
25 April 2005 ~ "The Iraq war was thrust to the top of the election agenda last night after the Attorney General's advice to the Prime Minister over the legality of the conflict was leaked."
Independent Read in full
"The Independent has learnt that the Government is also facing a potentially explosive challenge over its refusal to disclose the date on which Mr Blair first sought the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the war. The challenge came from the leading human rights lawyer, Lord Lester QC, who said the date could show that Mr Blair decided to go war much earlier than previously disclosed, possibly after he returned from President Bush's Texas ranch in 2002. Ann Abrahams, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, upheld a complaint about the Government's refusal to disclose the date, and the Government's deadline for releasing the information expired on Friday.
Lord Lester will today apply to the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas for the release of the date under the Freedom of Information Act. "It must be pure political embarrassment which is causing them to defy the Ombudsman's findings," he said. "It is an extremely rare thing to do and completely unacceptable. What are they trying to hide?" A senior Labour strategist dismissed allegations that there had been a cover-up about the war as "garbage". Mr Blair and Gordon Brown will refocus on the economy in British cities today.
The former US president Bill Clinton, in a live satellite link from New York to a Labour rally in London, urged "disillusioned" Labour voters not to sit back and abstain from voting on 5 May."24 April 2005 ~ Today's Mail on Sunday claims to list six "caveats" that were stripped from a summary of the advice published 10 days later on the eve of a crucial parliamentary debate on the war.
IOS"They reportedly included warnings that only the United Nations could judge whether Saddam Hussein had defied its order to disarm and that Mr Blair could not rely on the American position that the war was legal..."
24 April 2005 ~ Blair blow as secret war doubts revealed
- Attorney General's advice on Iraq is leaked
- He cast doubts on legality of invasion
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor Sunday April 24, 2005 The Observer24 April 2005 ~ The legal advice of the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, during the run-up to war in Iraq came under fresh scrutiny last night
as it was claimed that he had listed six reasons why Britain could be in breach of international law. These arguments were reported to be contained in a 13-page document dated 7 March 2003 which has never been made public. It was seen by only a relative handful of people at the highest levels of government - including Britain's military top brass, who found it unsatisfactory. Lord Goldsmith's balanced reasoning was said to have dismayed Admiral Sir Michael Boyce..." Read in full
9 April 2005 ~"The blame for keeping the Iraq advice secret belongs to the Prime Minister."
A letter in the Times from the barrister and ex Labour MP Roy D. Roebuck "... The position was authoritatively set out by the late Sam Silkin, Attorney-General in 1978, in these words:
in my experience there is no more potent weapon in a democratic society than the reality of accountability to parliament. Every decision which the attorney takes, every piece of advice which he gives, every statement which he makes is one for which in some form or other he may ultimately be held accountable to parliament(The Functions and Position of the Attorney- General in the United Kingdom: article in The Parliamentarian, July 1978).
It is well established that when the advice of a law officer is relied on in determining government policy, it may be disclosed to the Commons. .... The fact that the present attorney is a peer does not change the situation. The Commons can scrutinise his activities through the Solicitor-General, Harriet Harman, a robust campaigner for openness in public affairs.
The blame for keeping the Iraq advice secret belongs to the Prime Minister. He is responsible for the ministerial code, which states in paragraph 24 that the law officers' advice must not be disclosed outside government without their authority. Mr Blair could change paragraph 24 by a stroke of the pen or instruct Lord Goldsmith to give authority to disclosure.
It is a sad fact that neither members of the Commons nor of the Lords have compelled this to be done. Why are they so feeble?..." Read in full25 March 2005 ~ "....as at 21st March 2005 , his professional fees in relation to work connected with the conflict in Iraq amounted to approximately £46,000 (excluding VAT)," said Lord Goldsmith about Professor Christopher Greenwood QC's "work" on Iraq. See Scotsman ( Lord Goldsmith is a commercial lawyer with no experience of international law. He turned to Professor Christopher Greenwood of the London School of Economics, who was known to support the invasion.)
25 March 2005 ~ Richard Norton Taylor in the Guardian (below) charts the course of the Attorney General's changing mind.
..Autumn 2002 According to Butler report, Goldsmith concludes "there would be no justification for use of force against Iraq on grounds of self-defence against imminent threat". .became...
March 13 2003 Goldsmith sees Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan, two of Blair's closest advisers, at an unminuted Downing Street meeting, and expresses his now "clear view" that war would be lawful under resolution 1441. Read in full25 March 2005 ~ Simon Jenkins' article: Just do what the PM wants http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1059-1540649,00.html Extracts:
....surely publishing the final, March 17, opinion would have hugely helped Mr Blair. When I suggested this to a senior official some time ago, I well recall his reply. The Attorney-General's final advice would never be published, he said, for the simple reason that "it does not exist" . It was a "sofa memorandum", cobbled together to calm the Chief of the Defence Staff and Labour backbenchers. It was a banana republic moment..."
"...That March, Downing Street had no call for professional tap-dancers. It needed shysters and gumshoes."
"International lawyers were overwhelmingly hostile to the Iraq invasion. There was only one ostensibly independent voice cheerleading for Downing Street, Professor Christopher Greenwood, of the LSE. Last week it was revealed that he had received more than £50,000 for his services by Lord Goldsmith, a fact never revealed in his media appearances. So much for academic independence.." (Read in full)
24 March 2005 ~ "The letter shows definitively that Elizabeth Wilmshurst was not the only Foreign Office lawyer to disagree that invading Iraq would be legal. Indeed she says that view was given "consistently" by her department. Her views are shared by many international lawyers from around the world..." Independent
23/24 March 2005 ~ Fascinating new evidence revealed by Channel 4. Part of a minute by Elizabeth Wilmshurst - in effect a resignation letter - was released under the Freedom of Information Act, with the crucial paragraph - on Lord Goldsmith's changed position censored. But Channel 4 News has the missing details. The censored paragraph
My views accord with the advice that has been given consistently in this Office (the foreign office legal team office) before and after the adoption of UN security council resolution 1441 and with what the Attorney General gave us to understand was his view prior to his letter of 7 March. (The view expressed in that letter has of course changed again into what is now the official line.)"
shows that Lord Goldsmith did, in the view of at least one honourable member of the FO, change his advice to suit the government's wishes. For the government now to say that it had "withheld that key paragraph in the public interest - to protect the privacy of the advice given by the attorney general"
Liberal Democrat MP Sir Menzies Campbell told Channel 4 News: The government didn't withhold it in the public interest, it withheld it in the government's interest."
Read Mrs Wilmshurst's letter in full19 March 2005 ~ David Shayler says he plans to stand against Tony Blair in Sedgefield. It was Mr Shayler, the former MI5 officer jailed for revealing state secrets, who gave this spirited defence of Katherine Gun last year after she publicised the e-mail from the National Security Agency in Washington suggested spying on the seven swing vote countries at the UN, votes crucial to winning the eventually un-won second resolution committing the world to war in Iraq. He said, "She acted gallantly and honourably to expose an illegal operation... the 1989 Official Secrets Act remains a cancer in the body politic....In the case of Katharine Gun, the Attorney General and the man who employs him, the Prime Minister, risked being enormously embarrassed by the disclosure of legal advice regarding the Iraq war... " To jail her, the Government would have had to reveal the legal advice upon which they went to war. As John Chapman wrote in the Guardian a year ago,
"... The prime minister's foreword to the so-called "dodgy dossier" emphasised that it was from the joint intelligence committee - chaired by the cabinet office and made up of heads of intelligence agencies and senior officials from key departments. With such a pedigree, the implication was, its views must be sound. Civil servants are above politics.
Evidence to the Hutton inquiry suggested the opposite. Questionable intelligence was used, with distortions like the 45-minute claim, against the views of intelligence staff. Political advisers from Number 10 had pummelled JIC officials to redraft to create more alarm. A former JIC chairman, Sir Rodric Braithwaite, has accused the JIC of losing its objectivity. It appears impossible to square the WMD report with the integrity promoted by the civil service code. The issue has become murkier with the possibility that the attorney general's advice was also based on suspect intelligence, which may have led to the ending of last week's Katherine Gun trial. .."
PQ on 1 Mar 2005
SOLICITOR-GENERAL
Iraq
Mr. Cash: To ask the Solicitor-General what involvement (a) the Lord Chancellor and (b) Baroness Morgan had in preparation of the reply to the parliamentary question tabled by the hon. Member for Stone to the Prime Minister on 11 March 2003 on the legal basis for military intervention in Iraq to which the Attorney-General referred in evidence to the Butler Inquiry on 5 May 2004; and if she will make a statement. [218964]
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Solicitor-General where and in what buildings, the written statement made to Parliament on 17 March 2003 setting out the legal basis for the war in Iraq was prepared; and by whom. [219422]
The Solicitor-General: The Attorney-General's written answer of 17 March 2003, Official Report, column 515W, which I relayed to the House, was drawn up in the office of the Attorney-General. Those involved were the Attorney-General and myself, two officials in our office, three officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Christopher Greenwood QC. The draft was also discussed with the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg. The Attorney-General was fully involved throughout the drafting process and personally finalised and approved the answer.
No other Minister or official was involved. In particular, neither Baroness Morgan of Huyton nor Lord Falconer of Thoroton, nor any official in the Prime Minister's office had any involvement whatever in the
1 Mar 2005 : Column 1075W
drafting of the answer. The Attorney-General has never said that they did so. As the Attorney-General has always made clear, he set out in the answer his own genuinely held, independent view that military action was lawful under the existing Security Council resolutions.Mr. Tyrie: To ask the Solicitor-General (1) what discussions the Attorney-General had with respect to drafting the written answer of 17 March 2003, Official Report, House of Lords, column WA2; [219444]
(2) what advice the Attorney-General received, and from whom, prior to the writing of the written answer of 17 March 2003, Official Report, House of Lords, column WA2; [219445]
(3) whether the Attorney-General's written answer of 17 March 2003, Official Report, House of Lords, column WA2, was written by the Attorney-General. [219446]
The Solicitor-General: I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) on 1 March 2005 (218964).
March 13 2005 ~ The A4 War: What have the Attorney General and the Prime Minister got to hide?
Independent Was the paper used by Tony Blair to justify war a legal 'view', a legal 'opinion' or a definitive 'statement'? By Raymond Whitaker
"......When the Cabinet met on 17 March 2003, two days before the first bombs fell on Baghdad, all it saw was the nine-paragraph statement, shorn of all caveats, which was also issued on the same day as a parliamentary answer.
Why was this later statement produced? Because senior military officers, led by the Chief of Staff, Sir Michael Boyce, demanded an assurance that their troops would not find themselves charged with war crimes if Iraq was invaded. .." Read in full
March 12 2005 ~ MPs urge Bar Council to investigate advice on war
Independent The Attorney General is facing a damaging inquiry by the barristers' ruling body after the revelation by the country's most senior civil servant that Britain went to war on the basis of one page of legal advice. MPs have lodged a formal complaint with the Bar Council, which regulates barristers, and asked for an investigation into Lord Goldsmith's conduct in offering his "definitive advice" on the legality of invading Iraq on a single page of A4. It came as the Government confirmed yesterday it would not release the legal advice for war despite a request to review its decisions.
Yesterday, Clare Short, the former international development secretary, was also told her complaint about the Attorney General's presentation of legal advice - with no supporting documentation - would be investigated by the council's complaints commissioner. .... "I am told the inquiry will be independent," she said. ....
the revelation by Sir Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary, that a short parliamentary answer by the Attorney General was the "definitive advice" on the war sent to the Prime Minister and that there was "no other version". Jack Straw was also under pressure after MPs claimed he "misled the Commons" over the legal advice on the war..." Read in full
March 11 2005 ~ Another body blow hits the questionable case for conflict
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=618880
"Tony Blair appears to be sinking deeper and deeper into a hole of his own making over the legal case for war in Iraq. Yesterday's admission by the Cabinet Secretary that there was no formal legal opinion by the Attorney General beyond his one-page written parliamentary answer is remarkable. It provides further evidence that corners were cut in the rush to war, and is bound to fuel criticism that the advice of the most senior law officer was manipulated for political reasons. " Read in fullMarch 10 Guardian http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1434144,00.html
Goldsmith misled cabinet on Iraq says Short
Backing for military action 'obtained improperly'
Richard Norton-Taylor and David Pallister
".... Lord Goldsmith came under added pressure to explain his position when the prime minister contradicted his account of a parliamentary answer used by ministers to make the case for war.
Tony Blair told MPs that the cabinet did not need a full text of the attorney's legal advice - as required by the ministerial code of conduct - as Lord Goldsmith had explained it in an oral presentation.
In response to a question from the Plaid Cymru leader, Elfyn Llwyd, Mr Blair told MPs: "The attorney general came to the cabinet and gave his opinion in detail and was there able to answer any queries that people raised about it."
He added: "If it is being said that somehow the legal opinion of the attorney general is different from the attorney general's statement to this house that is patently absurd." Read in full
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=618151Blair broke code to keep war advice from Cabinet
MPs clamour for inquiry as row flares again over legality of Iraq invasion
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent09 March 2005
Tony Blair is facing calls for a formal investigation after it emerged that he breached the official code of conduct for ministers by failing to show the Attorney General's full advice on the legality of the Iraq war to the Cabinet....."
See below
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=618099How ministers were misled on the legality of Iraq invasion
Clare Short09 March 2005
Following the recent controversy about the Attorney General's advice, I have gone over in detail the process by which he gave his advice on the legality of the war. I have concluded that he failed to comply with the Ministerial Code when giving his advice to the Cabinet and that he misled the Cabinet about his legal advice.
See below
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=618149
A controversy that still damages Blair
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor09 March 2005
........Philippe Sands, a QC in Cherie Blair's Matrix Chambers and professor of international law at University College London, last month published a book shining fresh light on the legal advice given to Mr Blair in the run-up to war by Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General. On 7 March 2003, Lord Goldsmith warned that the use of force might be judged illegal without a second United Nations resolution approving military action, Professor Sands wrote. By 13 March, he had changed his mind.What happened in between? Lord Goldsmith denies claims that he was "leant on". But Lord Butler's inquiry last July disclosed that he sought, and was given, an assurance by Mr Blair that Saddam Hussein was still in breach of existing United Nations resolutions. See below
Richard Norton-Taylor in the Guardian March 3"The attorney who passed the buck"
27 February 2005 ~ Herald"... Iraq has not faded away quietly.
At the core of Blair's problem is the issue he cannot avoid: the legality of his decision to unquestionably support the Bush administration in going to war in Iraq when virtually all international legal advice warned there was no justification for doing so. ....legal evidence that would brand Blair a potential war criminal .... the publication next week of Lawless World....a detailed account of how the attorney general, Peter Goldsmith, changed his mind on the legality of the war within a crucial 10-day period .."
25 February 2005 ~
" The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, this evening forcefully rejected accusations that Downing Street had drafted a parliamentary answer summarising his advice
to the government on the legality of the Iraq war. In a written statement, he rejected claims that the answer of March 17 last year had been drafted in No 10 by Lord Falconer ...Earlier today Tony Blair angrily rejected repeated calls for the government's legal advice on the Iraq war to be published in full, after a member of Lord Butler's inquiry (Michael Mates) broke ranks to demand the document now be aired. ." Read in full - Guardian
25 February 2005 ~
the attorney general's advice had been "tailored to political convenience".
The Guardian published evidence Lord Goldsmith gave to the Butler inquiry where the attorney general said a parliamentary answer - presented by ministers as his legal opinion of the case for war - was drafted by Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan, Mr Blair's director for political-government relations. .... Lord Lester QC, the Liberal Democrat peer and human rights lawyer, said the attorney general's advice had been "tailored to political convenience". http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1425046,00.html
24/25 February 2005 ~
the allegation that Lord Goldsmith's summary of his advice - the full details of which have still not been released by the government - was written by others, including members of Mr Blair's political staff, was "disturbing and extraordinary".
"...The shadow attorney general, Dominic Grieve, said the allegation that Lord Goldsmith's summary of his advice - the full details of which have still not been released by the government - was written by others, including members of Mr Blair's political staff, was "disturbing and extraordinary". .... Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned before the war saying that an attack had no legal legitimacy and would amount to a "crime of aggression". Guardian - read in full
24 February 2005 ~
'Lord Goldsmith warned Mr Blair in a document on 7 March 2003 that the use of force against Iraq could be illegal.
Mr Sands wrote: "So concerned was the Government about the possibility of such a case that it took steps to put together a legal team to prepare for possible international litigation." See today's Independent on the continuing pressure on Mr Blair to publish the legal advice on which he took Britain to war in Iraq. Lord Goldsmith's insistence that,"The parliamentary statement was genuinely my own view and I was not leaned on to give that view. It is nonsense to suggest that No 10 wrote the statement" is sounding increasingly lame.23 February 2005 ~
How could the attorney general have been prevailed upon to lend Britain's name to such a weak and dismal argument?"
"..... Lord Goldsmith was later "asked the question - would regime change be lawful per se, and he said no, it wouldn't". .."
A fascinating extract from Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules by Philippe Sands in today's Guardian "... The attorney general's published opinion - that a non-existent authority to use force can "revive" at the behest of three of the 15 members of the security council -makes a mockery of the UN system. How could the attorney general have been prevailed upon to lend Britain's name to such a weak and dismal argument?" Read in full
14 February 2005 ~
Attorney General 'distanced himself from war advice
Attorney General 'distanced himself from war advice "Only after receiving a written reassurance from No 10 that it is "indeed the Prime Minister's unequivocal view that Iraq is in further material breach of its obligations" did the Attorney General deliver his legal backing for the war to Parliament on 17 March." Independent So there we are. The Attorney General appears to be rattled - particularly perhaps since Kofi Annan has said that the invasion was illegal. It was Mr Blair and no one but Mr Blair who decided, in the face of advice and warnings, to take this country to war. A letter from 16 professors of international law from Oxford, Cambridge, and London universities, as reported in The Guardian 7 March 2003, warned him: "On the basis of the information publicly available, there is no justification under international law for the use of military force against Iraq."
Attorney General conceded doubts over legality of war
Independent By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor 04 March 2004The Attorney General's secret legal advice on Iraq conceded that a key United Nations resolution on the issue did not automatically authorise war, a government memo has suggested. See below
.
MORE.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=618151
Blair broke code to keep war advice from Cabinet
MPs clamour for inquiry as row flares again over legality of Iraq invasion
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent09 March 2005
Tony Blair is facing calls for a formal investigation after it emerged that he breached the official code of conduct for ministers by failing to show the Attorney General's full advice on the legality of the Iraq war to the Cabinet.
MPs demanded that Sir Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary, launch an immediate inquiry into whether Mr Blair and the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, flouted the code.
Politicians from all parties seized on a written answer from the Prime Minister as an admission that cabinet ministers should have been given Lord Goldsmith's full legal opinion before Britain went to war.
The former cabinet minster Clare Short stepped into the row yesterday when she accused Mr Blair and Lord Goldsmith of flouting the code. In a letter copied to the Prime Minister and Sir Andrew, Ms Short accused Lord Goldsmith of failing "to comply with the ministerial code when giving your advice to the Cabinet".
She said: "I am afraid that it is now clear to me that by failing to reveal your full legal advice and the considerations that underpinned your final advice, you misled the Cabinet and therefore helped obtain support for military action improperly. This is a very serious matter in relation to the war in Iraq, the integrity of your office, your own integrity and the proper working of UK constitutional arrangements."
The former international development secretary added: "The logic flows to Blair but I am starting with the Attorney General. There should be a proper system of investigation of complaints under the ministerial code." The Attorney General's office said it had not seen Ms Short's letter but would respond when it arrived.
A number of ministers have resigned for breaching the code, which sets out how ministers should behave. Mr Blair's apparent breach emerged after Simon Thomas, a Plaid Cymru MP, asked the Prime Minister whether he was "required under the ministerial code of conduct to show full legal advice from the Attorney General relating to matters before the Cabinet to each member of the Cabinet."
Mr Blair did not deny he was required to show full legal advice to his colleagues but referred Mr Thomas to the part of the code relating to "the conduct of cabinet business" and "advice received from the law officers". It says when a summary of legal advice is given to ministers, the full advice should be attached. "When advice from the Law Officers is included in correspondence between Ministers, or in papers for the Cabinet or Ministerial Committees," the code says, "the conclusions may if necessary be summarised but, if this is done, the complete text of the advice should be attached."
A Downing Street spokesman said: "As far as the legal advice on Iraq is concerned he has behaved properly at all times."
Mr Thomas said the reply was an "admission" from Mr Blair that he was in breach of the code. He added: "It puts him in the frame. For the first time you see through the cracks in his defences and he has had to admit he has breached the code. I am writing to Sir Andrew asking him to investigate and to the Prime Minister saying, you have breached the code."
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said: "On the face of it, the Prime Minister was in breach of the ministerial code. The unsatisfactory nature of events is illustrated by the fact that the guardian of that code is the Prime Minister himself."
Cabinet members were not shown the full advice before the decision was made to go to war. They were given a presentation by the Attorney General and a copy of his parliamentary answer about his advice.
Lord Goldsmith told the House of Lords that the written answer setting out his views on the legality of war was "a summary of my view of the legal position, rather than a detailed consideration of legal issues".
In his introduction to the code, Mr Blair said the code was crucial to "the bond of trust between the British people and their Government". It is the Prime Minister himself who is the watchdog and must initiate investigations into the code.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=618099
How ministers were misled on the legality of Iraq invasion
Clare Short09 March 2005
Following the recent controversy about the Attorney General's advice, I have gone over in detail the process by which he gave his advice on the legality of the war. I have concluded that he failed to comply with the Ministerial Code when giving his advice to the Cabinet and that he misled the Cabinet about his legal advice.
The Ministerial Code lays down that: "The Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on Ministers to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations."
When the Attorney came to the Cabinet on 17 March, the text of what purported to be his advice was distributed around the table. He began to read it out. There were murmurings indicating that he did not need to read it as members of the Cabinet could read it for themselves. I then attempted to initiate a discussion. I asked why it was so late and whether he had changed his mind. No discussion was allowed. The paper he provided was then published as an answer to a parliamentary question.
I was very surprised by the advice, but I accepted it as the official and authoritative advice of the Attorney. I said at the time: "The Attorney General has made clear that military action would be legal under international law. Other lawyers have expressed contrary opinions. But for the UK Government, the Civil Service and the military, it is the view of the Attorney General that matters and this is unequivocal." But I am afraid that the advice was not in truth unequivocal. It had been hedged around with qualifications. But none of this was revealed to the Cabinet or to Parliament.
The evidence provided by the Butler report shows that he was not wholly honest with the Cabinet. The report provides details of the complex process through which his advice developed. Butler tells us that prior to the adoption of UN Resolution 1441 the Attorney concluded that "there would be no justification for the use of force against Iraq on the grounds of self-defence against imminent threat". The Butler report confirms what I heard from my officials that after the passage of 1441 and following disagreement among Foreign Office legal advisers, all concerned agreed that the final word would belong to the Attorney.
Butler also tells us that in the weeks following the adoption of the resolution, the Attorney General had a number of discussions with the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary about whether 1441 was sufficient to authorise the use of force, and that he talked with our ambassador to the UN and in February 2003 met members of the US administration. Butler says that he informed the Prime Minister's advisers of his view at a meeting on 28 February 2003 and that his office asked him to put these views in writing, which he did in a formal Minute to the Prime Minister on 7 March 2003. None of these exchanges or the content of the minute were reported to the Cabinet.
This is very significant because the Attorney failed to share his concerns with the Cabinet and to describe how he came to be persuaded of the legality of war. Butler informs us that his minute required the Prime Minister, in the absence of a further UN Security Council resolution, to be satisfied that there were "strong factual grounds for concluding that Iraq had failed to take the final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Security Council and that it was possible to demonstrate hard evidence of non-compliance and non-co-operation with the requirements of Security Council Resolution 1441, so as to justify the conclusion that Iraq was in further material breach of its obligations".
All of this was kept from the Cabinet, although at this time I was reading telegrams of Dr Blix's reports to the Security Council indicating increased co-operation from the Iraqi regime. Butler tells us that on the basis of the Attorney's advice, military campaign objectives were drawn up, making it clear that the objective was to bring about Iraq's disarmament in accordance with its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions.
Butler tells us that the Attorney then informed Lord Falconer and Sally Morgan at a meeting on 13 March that in his view it was lawful under Resolution 1441 to use force without a further UN resolution, but on 14 March, after the breakdown of negotiations at the UN, his Legal Secretary wrote to the Prime Minister's Private Secretary seeking confirmation that "it is unequivocally the Prime Minister's view that Iraq was in material breach of its obligations under 1441". The Prime Minister so confirmed, and the Butler inquiry was informed that the Prime Minister relied on intelligence and other sources including Unmovic information. None of this was reported to Cabinet and it is notable that the Prime Minister was reaching dubious conclusions about factual questions without any Cabinet discussion. I was at the time reading accounts of Unmovic's reports which did not point to this conclusion.
I have therefore made a complaint under paragraphs 22 and 23 of the Ministerial Code. Paragraph 23 provides that "When advice from the Law Officers is included in correspondence between Ministers, or in papers for the Cabinet or Ministerial Committees, the conclusions may if necessary be summarised, but if this is done, the complete text of the advice should be attached."
My view is now that by failing to reveal his full legal advice and the considerations that underpinned his final advice, the Attorney misled the Cabinet and therefore helped obtain support for military action improperly. This is a very serious matter in relation to the war in Iraq, the integrity of his office, his own integrity and the proper working of UK constitutional arrangements.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=618149
A controversy that still damages Blair
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor09 March 2005
Whenever Tony Blair thinks Iraq is fading as an issue, it returns. With each new act of insurgency in Iraq or renewed question about the way he took Britain to war, the shadow returns.
After the elections in Iraq in January there was cautious optimism among Mr Blair's allies that democracy could spread through the Middle East, but the picture has been clouded by continuing problems in Iraq and by renewed doubts about the legality of the war.
Philippe Sands, a QC in Cherie Blair's Matrix Chambers and professor of international law at University College London, last month published a book shining fresh light on the legal advice given to Mr Blair in the run-up to war by Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General. On 7 March 2003, Lord Goldsmith warned that the use of force might be judged illegal without a second United Nations resolution approving military action, Professor Sands wrote. By 13 March, he had changed his mind.
What happened in between? Lord Goldsmith denies claims that he was "leant on". But Lord Butler's inquiry last July disclosed that he sought, and was given, an assurance by Mr Blair that Saddam Hussein was still in breach of existing United Nations resolutions. Not all of Professor Sands' allegations stood up. He suggested that the Attorney General's parliamentary statement endorsing the use of force - a crucial factor in persuading Cabinet ministers and MPs to back the war - was drafted by two close Blair allies, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, then a Home Office minister, and Baroness Morgan of Huyton, the Downing Street director of external relations.
Lord Goldsmith dampened down this allegation, which appears to have been based on an erroneous transcript from the evidence he gave in private to the Butler committee.
But doubts remain about the legal authority for war, not least because the Government has doggedly refused to publish the full 13-page document submitted by Lord Goldsmith on 7 March. Ministers take refuge in the long-standing tradition that the law officers' opinion should remain confidential. They rejected a request by The Independent and others for the advice to be released under the new Freedom of Information Act, arguing that disclosure could prevent the Attorney General giving frank advice to the Government in future.
Doubts persist that the 7 March document may have contained damaging caveats. Certainly, opinion among government lawyers was divided. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, resigned, attacking the planned intervention in Iraq as a "crime of aggression".
Lord Goldsmith has also been criticised for relying on an expert opinion from Christopher Greenwood QC, professor of international law at the London School of Economics. Critics say he was among a minority in his field to endorse the invasion.
Today The Independent discloses yet another twist in the tale. The 7 March document, sent to Mr Blair, is believed to have been seen by only a small number of ministers, including the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, whose service chiefs were demanding a legal green light. Crucially, the cabinet meeting on 17 March was given only the two-page parliamentary statement by Lord Goldsmith. After written questions by MPs it emerged yesterday that, under the ministers' code of conduct, the Cabinet should have seen the Attorney General's full advice as well as his summary.
The evasions and the contradictions do not end there. The Government may try to wriggle off the hook by claiming Lord Goldsmith's statement to Parliament was not a summary of his legal advice. He said on 25 February this year: "The [parliamentary] answer did not purport to be a summary of my confidential legal advice to government."
Yet in November 2003, the Attorney General said in another written answer: "This statement was a summary of my view of the legal position, rather than a detailed consideration of the legal issues. The statement was nevertheless consistent with my detailed legal advice."
The "Iraq effect" is still there on the doorstep, Labour officials report from the election front line. The issue is wider than the military intervention, with some voters expressing concern they have "lost" their Prime Minister to foreign affairs and others seeing "Iraq" as shorthand for their loss of trust in Mr Blair. The real "Iraq effect" will be measured on 5 May.
warmwell LINKS
Bin Laden's laughter echoes across the West
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,916078,00.htmlAttorney general: war is legal
Staff and agencies
Monday March 17, 2003A series of UN security council resolutions provides the legal basis for military action against Iraq, the government's top law adviser said today.
The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, said in a written parliamentary answer that the authority to use force against Iraq stemmed from the combined effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441.
Lord Goldsmith stated: "All of these resolutions were adopted under chapter VII of the UN charter which allows the use of force for the express purpose of restoring international peace and security."
The actual advice passed by the attorney general to the prime minister has not been made public, but the official response given today reverses previous speculation that Lord Goldsmith may fail to find legal justification for an attack.
In his written answer, Lord Goldsmith stated: "In resolution 678 the security council authorised force against Iraq, to eject it from Kuwait and to restore peace and security in the area.
"In resolution 687, which set out the ceasefire conditions after Operation Desert Storm, the security council imposed continuing obligations on Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction in order to restore international peace and security in the area.
"Resolution 687 suspended but did not terminate the authority to use force under resolution 678.
"A material breach of resolution 687 revives the authority to use force under resolution 678.
"In resolution 1441 the security council determined that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of resolution 687, because it has not fully complied with its obligations to disarm under that resolution.
"The security council in resolution 1441 gave Iraq 'a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations' and warned Iraq of the 'serious consequences' if it did not."
Lord Goldsmith's statement continued: "The security council also decided in resolution 1441 that, if Iraq failed at any time to comply with and co-operate fully in the implementation of resolution 1441, that would constitute a further material breach.
"It is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply and therefore Iraq was at the time of resolution 1441 and continues to be in material breach.
"Thus, the authority to use force under resolution 678 has revived and so continues today.
"Resolution 1441 would in terms have provided that a further decision of the security council to sanction force was required if that had been intended.
"Thus, all that resolution 1441 requires is reporting to and discussion by the security council of Iraq's failures, but not an express further decision to authorise force."
"...the hapless Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, was rushed forward ... to refute almost all legal opinion and invent an eccentric interplay between resolutions 678, 687 and 1441..." Simon Jenkins on March 19th 2003 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2734-615675,00.html
Bin Laden's laughter echoes across the West
Simon JenkinsAs of tomorrow, Britain will be at war with an Arab country that offers no threat to it or to anyone. British troops will be fighting an action which the UN would have declared unlawful if asked. Now we can only hope they win fast.
.........
For all his references to terrorism and September 11, Mr Blair has been starkly unable to establish Saddam as a terrorist threat. He may have been exasperated by the UN Security Council's refusal to cow before his friends in Washington, but the fact is that despite fierce armtwisting it did not cow. One reason was sheer American ineptitude in daily deriding the UN, its inspectors and anyone seeking peaceful disarmament. This swung world opinion against the much-desired "second resolution", boosting Saddam and undermining Mr Blair.
This destroyed the two pro-American coalitions forged after September 11, 2001 and again before last autumn's Resolution 1441. Both were real achievements of British diplomacy, and Washington's hamfisted wrecking of them will rank among the fiascos of international relations. Small wonder Mr Blair shuddered after condemning France when a backbencher referred to America's 75 vetoes on Middle East resolutions. Washington received hardly a mention in his speech. This was suddenly a very British war.
UN backing for a war was perfectly possible with tact and with time. It received neither. Instead the hapless Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, was rushed forward on Monday to refute almost all legal opinion and invent an eccentric interplay between resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 to deny the fact that last year's coalition was forged on the explicit understanding that war was for the Security Council to determine. Knowing America's intent, the Government would have been more honest to leave the UN in the gutter from the start. Instead it is sustained only on the broken-backed morality of Clare Short. ........."
Jan 212004 ~ Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are considering a request by an international body of lawyers to try the Prime Minister for alleged war crimes during the invasion of Iraq. Independent " A report alleging illegal deployment of cluster bombs and weapons using depleted uranium was handed to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court's chief prosecutor in The Hague, yesterday. He will decide whether to begin a formal investigation which could include questioning of Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, and Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence. If he concludes that a prosecution has a "reasonable prospect of success", the case will go before the pre-trial chamber of the court, which has the power to try individuals and governments for war crimes. No case has been made against the US administration because America has not signed the treaty that established the court. The report was written by eight international lawyers after a "war crimes inquiry" in London last November heard evidence from eye-witnesses and expert witnesses and leading counsel.The panel concluded there was enough evidence for the prosecutor to investigate members of the Government for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes during the conflict and occupation. They said that he should investigate the use of cluster bombs in urban areas, and whether attacks had been launched on non-military targets.They also want the prosecutor to look into attacks on media targets and whether weapons were used which caused excessive loss of life or injury to civilians."
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Attorney General conceded doubts over legality of war
Independent By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor 04 March 2004The Attorney General's secret legal advice on Iraq conceded that a key United Nations resolution on the issue did not automatically authorise war, a government memo has suggested.
A Foreign Office memorandum, giving detailed reasons behind Lord Goldsmith's opinion, made clear that there was no "automaticity" in resolution 1441 to justify the use of force.
The resolution, passed in November 2002 by the UN Security Council, gave Saddam Hussein a final opportunity to comply with disarmament demands and has been used by Tony Blair as legal cover for last year's war .
The Foreign Office memo, which has been submitted to a Commons select committee, was seized on by critics as evidence that important caveats in the legal advice were excluded from the summary published by the Government.
The controversy emerged as Mr Blair came under fire again in the Commons yesterday for refusing to publish the Attorney General's opinion in full. Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said that unless the full advice was made public there was a danger that voters would think it had been "sexed up".
After pressure from military chiefs, the Attorney General published a short summary of his legal opinion on 17 March, three days before the war began. The 358-word summary gave a rough outline of the case for military action, stating that UN resolution 1441 authorised the use of force because it revived earlier resolutions passed at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. No further UN resolutions were needed, the summary suggested.
But on the same day that the summary was published, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, wrote a little-noticed letter to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, including what he described as a paper which gave more detail. The paper makes the point that earlier UN resolutions 687 and 687 from the Gulf War allowed force to be used against Iraq. The advice goes on to state that UN resolution 1441 warned of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to comply with its disarmament obligations.
In a passage that in effect agrees with arguments made at the time by critics such as France and Russia, the Foreign Office paper adds: "It is important to stress that SCR 1441 did not revive the 678 authorisation immediately upon its adoption. There was no 'automaticity'. The resolution afforded Iraq a final opportunity to comply and it provided for any failure by Iraq to be 'considered' by the Security Council." The paper goes on to argue that the lack of automatic force of 1441 "does not mean that no further action can be taken without a new resolution" of the Security Council.
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said last night that the memo's admission that UN resolution 1441 gave no automatic authority for war was "extremely significant".
"A possible inference to be drawn from this document is that the Attorney General too shared the view that 1441 did not create 'automaticity'," he said. "We can't be sure, but it is yet another compelling piece of information justifying the publication of the whole of the Attorney General's advice." 4 March 2004 21:08
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1434144,00.html
Goldsmith misled cabinet on Iraq says Short
Backing for military action 'obtained improperly'
Richard Norton-Taylor and David PallisterThursday March 10, 2005
The Guardian
The crisis over the attorney general's conduct deepened yesterday when a former colleague accused him of misleading the cabinet about the legality of the invasion of Iraq.
Lord Goldsmith came under added pressure to explain his position when the prime minister contradicted his account of a parliamentary answer used by ministers to make the case for war.
Tony Blair told MPs that the cabinet did not need a full text of the attorney's legal advice - as required by the ministerial code of conduct - as Lord Goldsmith had explained it in an oral presentation.
In response to a question from the Plaid Cymru leader, Elfyn Llwyd, Mr Blair told MPs: "The attorney general came to the cabinet and gave his opinion in detail and was there able to answer any queries that people raised about it."
He added: "If it is being said that somehow the legal opinion of the attorney general is different from the attorney general's statement to this house that is patently absurd."This contradicts statements by Lord Goldsmith, who has gone out of his way to insist that his parliamentary answer on 17 March 2003 on the legality of the war did not reflect his legal advice and was not even a summary of it.
Lord Goldsmith said in response to the Guardian last month that the parliamentary answer "did not purport to be a summary of my confidential legal advice to government".
The answer said it was "plain" that Iraq was still in breach of its UN disarmament obligations.
Yesterday Clare Short, a member of the cabinet at the time, accused Lord Goldsmith of misleading his government colleagues.
Mr Blair also misled MPs by saying the cabinet was able to ask Lord Goldsmith questions about his legal advice, she said.
In a letter to Lord Goldsmith, Ms Short said that at the March 17 cabinet meeting she had tried to initiate a discussion. But she claimed that she was told not to ask such questions "and no discussion was allowed".
She accused the attorney general of breaching the ministerial code by not giving the cabinet the full version of what is now believed to be his last official written legal advice on the war on March 7 2003.
This 13-page document, never published, is widely understood to have warned Mr Blair that British participation in the war against Iraq could be ruled unlawful by an international court.
The ministerial code states that "when advice from the law officers is included in correspondence between ministers ... the conclusions may if necessary be summarised but, if this is done, the complete text of the advice should be attached".
Ms Short said yesterday that Lord Goldsmith had failed to share his concern about the legality of the war with the full cabinet or tell it why, and how, he had changed his mind.
She told the attorney general: "I am afraid that it is now clear to me that by failing to reveal your full legal advice and the considerations that underpinned your final advice you misled the cabinet and therefore helped to obtain support for military action improperly."
That was a very serious matter, she told Lord Goldsmith, in relation to the "integrity of your office, your own integrity and the proper working of UK constitutional arrangements".
The attorney general's advice on the legality of the war is to come under separate scrutiny, as a group of London lawyers has called on the Bar Council to investigate whether he has broken the profession's code of conduct.
In a letter to the council's professional conduct and complaints committee, barristers from at least four chambers say that if as suggested Lord Goldsmith was politically influenced to amend his advice this may have contravened two sections of the code which deal with barristers' independence.
The lawyers add: "It is further suggested that [the attorney general] permitted a parliamentary answer to be given, in his name, which did not accurately reflect the contents of his advice."
The government has until tomorrow to respond to a Guardian request under the Freedom of Information Act to publish the attorney general's full legal advice on the war and the resignation letter of the deputy chief legal adviser at the Foreign Office, Elizabeth Wilmshurst.
If it refuses to respond the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, will conduct an independent review and has the power to order their release.
Copied from part of the page at http://www.channel4.com/news/2005/03/week_4/23_letter.html a minute dated 18 March 2003 from Elizabeth Wilmshurst (Deputy Legal Adviser) to Michael Wood (The Legal Adviser), copied to the Private Secretary, the Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, Alan Charlton (Director Personnel) and Andrew Patrick (Press Office):
"1. I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution to revive the authorisation given in SCR 678. I do not need to set out my reasoning; you are aware of it. [blanked out section]
"My views accord with the advice that has been given consistently in this Office (the foreign office legal team office) before and after the adoption of UN security council resolution 1441 and with what the Attorney General gave us to understand was his view prior to his letter of 7 March. (The view expressed in that letter has of course changed again into what is now the official line.)"
I cannot in conscience go along with advice - within the Office or to the public or Parliament - which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression; nor can I agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law.
2. I therefore need to leave the Office: my views on the legitimacy of the action in Iraq would not make it possible for me to continue my role as a Deputy Legal Adviser or my work more generally. For example in the context of the International Criminal Court, negotiations on the crime of aggression begin again this year. I am therefore discussing with Alan Charlton whether I may take approved early retirement. In case that is not possible this letter should be taken as constituting notice of my resignation.
3. I joined the Office in 1974. It has been a privilege to work here. I leave with very great sadness." Channel 4 comments
: We reveal the missing words and ask why the government didn't want you to see them.
The document was released today under the Freedom of Information Act, with the crucial paragraph - on Lord Goldsmi