Reply #65: Coverage by the Independent

[paineinthearse]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=632492

Goldsmith told Blair 'war could be illegal'
By Francis Elliott, Severin Carrell and Andy McSmith
24 April 2005
Goldsmith told Blair 'war could be illegal'


Tony Blair was at the centre of a fresh row last night over the legality of the war in Iraq, as a new report claimed the Prime Minister was warned that the conflict breached international law. As opposition politicians and senior Labour figures intensified pressure on Mr Blair to publish in full the advice given by the Attorney General, the issue of the war in Iraq was propelled to the centre stage of the election campaign after a Sunday newspaper alleged that he was told the military action could be ruled illegal.

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. 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.

The disclosure prompted renewed calls for the Government to publish the full advice, to settle once and for all the question of whether Mr Blair misled the country into going to war. Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who resigned in protest as Leader of the Commons over the war in Iraq, said: "Many weeks ago, I urged the Government to publish the advice and said at the time that it was inevitable that it was going to become public. I deeply regret that the Government has left this issue to fester, to the point at which it has become public at the worst possible moment for the Government.

"They should've done it in their own time, and made a clean breast of it." "I resigned when it became evident that we couldn't get a second UN resolution. If this is indeed what the Attorney General said to the Prime Minister at the time, perhaps he should've resigned too." The fresh claims over the war's legality come at a very critical stage in the campaign. Michael Howard accused Mr Blair of telling lies yesterday as the fight for votes enters a bitter final phase, saying that he could "not even tell the truth" over the war.

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