February 24, 2005

Transcripts show No 10's hand in war legal advice

So the reason why the government has been so reluctant to publish the advise it was given saying that the Iraq War was legal comes to light at last. This 'legal advice' was itself no more than another dodgy dossier constructed to aid the case for a war that had already been decided was going to happen.
Transcripts of evidence given in private by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to an official inquiry suggest that the crucial advice on the legality of war, presented to parliament in his name, was written for him by two of Tony Blair's closest allies.

The document, seen by the Guardian, reveals the attorney general's private exchanges with Lord Butler during the course of his inquiry into the use of intelligence in the run-up to war against Iraq.

In them, the attorney general suggests his parliamentary statement giving legal backing to Britain's participation in the invasion was "set out" by Charles Falconer, then Home Office minister, and Baroness Morgan, the prime minister's director of political-government relations.

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