The Iraq Inquiry - Chilcott's Circus Clowns Come to Town

[Jan Klimkowski]

This is devastating for New Labour ministers.

The historical record, including newly released documents, strongly suggests that senior New Labour ministers and advisors decided to delay or even simply not to ask the FO legal department for their advice on international law because they knew they would be told that the war was illegal.

It's a tragedy Wood and Goldsmith didn't show the same integrity and courage as Elizabeth Wilmshurst and resign on principle once it was clear that Blair and his cronies were determined to launch what their lawyers were clearly telling them was an illegal war.

The question put to FO lawyers by Straw's private secretary - "Could HMG or individual service personnel be vulnerable in the UK or other courts to charges relating to unlawful use of force and would the issue of legality of our actions therefore be determined in our domestic courts?" - strongly suggests that Straw at least knew he was in danger of being hauled in front of the C21st equivalent of the Nuremberg trials, an International Criminal Court, for launching an illegal war.

Jack Straw's evidence to Iraq inquiry challenged by former legal adviser

Sir Michael Wood says former foreign secretary rejected his advice out of hand

Jack Straw's chief legal adviser at the time of the Iraq invasion today told the Chilcot inquiry that the then foreign secretary overruled his advice against military action.

The revelation by Sir Michael Wood, the top Foreign Office lawyer at the time, challenges the evidence Straw, now justice secretary, gave to the inquiry last week in which he insisted that he had "very reluctantly" supported the conflict.

Declassified documents released by the inquiry show that Wood warned ministers three months before the invasion that it was not certain if military action would be legal.

Separate evidence given to the inquiry by David Brummell, then a senior aide to the attorney general, has revealed that Lord Goldsmith warned both No 10 and Straw in November 2002 he was "pessimistic" that UN security council resolution 1441 could be used to justify military action without a second resolution.

In a collection of evidence that intensifies the pressure on Tony Blair, who is due to give evidence to the Iraq inquiry on Friday, the panel also released a memo written by Wood that refers to a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) cable detailing a meeting between Straw and Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, in which the foreign secretary reassured his American counterpart a year before the invasion that he was "entirely comfortable" making the case for war.

The meeting took place before Blair visited President Bush in Crawford, Texas, where the then prime minister was accused of "signing in blood" an agreement to join the US in an invasion.

Wood this morning told the inquiry panel, which is looking at the legality of the war, that he had rejected the government's argument that resolution 1441 – passed in November 2002 – requiring Saddam Hussein to disarm was a sufficient basis for military action.

"I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law," he said.

"In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorised by the security council, and had no other basis in international law."

However, when he presented his view to Straw in January 2003, he said it was dismissed out of hand.

"He took the view that I was being very dogmatic and that international law was pretty vague and that he wasn't used to people taking such a firm position," said Wood.

"When he had been at the Home Office, he had often been advised things were unlawful but he had gone ahead anyway and won in the courts."

He said this was "probably the first and only occasion" that a minister rejected his legal advice in this way.

"Obviously there are some areas of international law that can be quite uncertain. This however turned exclusively on the interpretation of a specific text and it is one on which I think that international law was pretty clear," he said.

"Because there is no court, the legal adviser and those taking decisions based on the legal advice have to be more scrupulous in adhering to the law."

In a newly declassified letter to the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, released by the inquiry, Straw complained at the attitude taken by government lawyers.

"I have been very forcefully struck by the paradox in the culture of government lawyers, which is the less certain the law is, the more certain in their views they become," he said.

Wood said there had been a reluctance by ministers to seek the attorney general's views until very late in the day.

"They really needed advice, even if they didn't want it at that stage, in order to develop their policy in the weeks leading up to the failure to get a second resolution," he said.

In his evidence to the inquiry, Brummell recalled that Goldsmith was worried his views on the legality of the looming conflict were not being sought around this time. On 11 November 2002 Goldsmith telephoned Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, to express concerns that his view on the legality of invasion had been wrongly described as "optimistic".

He offered to give formal advice at that stage but Powell said No 10 had "no illusions" about his views and suggested the matter could be discussed later, the hearing was told.

Goldsmith called Straw the next day and repeated his worries about "Chinese whispers" suggesting he did not believe a second Security Council resolution was needed.

Straw said it was "pretty clear" that with resolution 1441 the UN Security Council was telling Iraq "comply or else", the document shows.

Lord Goldsmith replied, saying the question was "who was to decide the 'or else'".

Brummell told the panel : "I remember a conversation he had with the foreign secretary in October, and in the course of that he made it clear that he did have concerns with the way in which things were going, the way in which things were developing, and he was concerned that he should advise to make the position clear."

Brummell said Goldsmith expressed "provisional views" about the legality of the Iraq war after resolution 1441 was passed, but came to a firm decision when he gave Blair detailed advice on 7 March 2003.

Wood's comments on Straw's rejection of his lawyers' advice were backed up by his former deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who quit just days before the first attacks on Iraq after telling her superiors that an invasion without UN sanction would be a "crime of aggression".

As deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office between 2001 and 2003, Wilmshurst worked with Wood and other lawyers advising the government on all major legal issues in the run-up to the war.

She told the inquiry this afternoon that it was "rather uncomfortable" to have Straw reject hers and Wood's advice, and that she saw it as a challenge to her role.

In a statement to the inquiry, released ahead of her appearance this afternoon, the former civil servant said the invasion was not only illegal but would damage the reputation of the UK as a law-abiding nation.

"Collective security, as opposed to unilateral military action, is a central purpose of the charter of the United Nations. Acting contrary to the charter, as I perceived the government to be doing, would have the consequence of damaging the United Kingdom's reputation as a state committed to the rule of law in international relations and to the United Nations."

Another declassified memo showed Straw asking government lawyers for "an urgent note about the practical consequences of the UK's acting without international legal authority in using force against Iraq".

The note, from Simon McDonald – Straw's private secretary at the time – asked whether an invasion would open government officials up to legal action in courts at home or abroad.

He asked: "Could HMG or individual service personnel be vulnerable in the UK or other courts to charges relating to unlawful use of force and would the issue of legality of our actions therefore be determined in our domestic courts?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/26...ot-inquiry