The Crawford Deal: did Blair sign up for war at Bush's Texas ranch in Apri

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Indepoendent on Sunday
We know that arguments raged about the legality of the war right up to a crucial cabinet meeting on 17 March 2003, two days before the attack began. But now new evidence pieced together by the 'IoS' strongly backs the suspicion that the PM had already made the decision to strike a year earlier. By Raymond Whitaker
27 February 2005


It was one of the most tense cabinet meetings Downing Street had seen in living memory. "We were on the brink of war," recalled Clare Short, who was there. The consequences would be dramatic, not only for those round the table, but for millions of Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of British and American troops.

The date was 17 March 2003, only two days before the war to oust Saddam Hussein was launched. "The atmosphere was very fraught by then," Ms Short, then International Development Secretary, said last week. Experts in international law were saying the impending conflict was illegal, her officials were concerned, and the military was demanding a clear statement of the legal position.

The issue of the war's legality has erupted back into the public arena in the past week with the publication of a book, Lawless World, by Philippe Sands QC, an international lawyer in Cherie Blair's Matrix Chambers. According to his account, the Attorney General, Lord Gold- smith, had delivered a 13-page opinion on 7 March 2003 which said that to be sure of legal authority for the war, a UN Security Council resolution specifically backing force was needed. Later, at a meeting at Downing Street, he said his views had become "clearer", and it was that clarification that was presented to Ms Short and her colleagues.

How that change came about has been the subject of intense speculation, reviving the pressure on the Government to publish the full text of the Attorney General's advice. But the lingering questions over the war do not end there. Mr Sands and others also raise doubts about another great mystery surrounding the conflict: when did Tony Blair first sign up to President George Bush's crusade to oust Saddam Hussein?
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=615231