FORMER BRITISH attorney general Lord Goldsmith rejected allegations yesterday at the Iraq inquiry that he had been pressurised by then-British prime minister Tony Blair and his key allies.
Lord Goldsmith ruled that the 2003 Iraq invasion was legal under international law in the weeks before it began.
During seven hours of evidence before the Iraq inquiry, the former attorney general said he had been pressed by the UK’s top military officer, Adm Lord Peter Boyce, in March 2003 to give a clear legal opinion, “one way, or the other” on whether the invasion was legal. Lord Goldsmith served as attorney general from 2001 to 2006
Up to January 14th, 2003, he had believed that an invasion could not be launched without a second UN resolution, which prompted an exchange of letters with then foreign secretary Jack Straw. Mr Straw had argued he was wrong and that military action could be taken on the basis of the first UN resolution alone.
On January 14th he changed his mind and decided that “a reasonable case” could be made for arguing an invasion could be launched using the first UN resolution. But he said the safest legal course would be to get a second which, of course, never happened.
However Lord Boyce, then chief of the defence staff, and the Ministry of Defence separately, told him in March that they needed a definitive answer.
“When I got the request from the armed services and from the civil service: ‘we want the attorney general to say he’s of the opinion that it is or isn’t lawful’, then I very quickly saw that actually this wasn’t satisfactory from their point of view,” Lord Goldsmith told the inquiry. “They deserved more. Our troops deserved more, our civil servants who might be on the line deserved more than my saying there was a reasonable case. So therefore it was important for me to come down clearly on one side of the argument or another which . . . I proceeded to do.”
Equally, Mr Blair also wanted “a clear statement” from him and this was made clear at a meeting in Downing Street on March 11th. Two days later the attorney general finally ruled the invasion was legal. Moreover, he made this public in a statement to the House of Lords three days later.
He denied he had been “put up against the wall” at a Downing Street meeting on March 13th with Lord Charlie Falconer and Lady Sally Morgan to get him to change, saying that never happened as he had already decided to give legal clearance by that stage. Lord Falconer was one of Mr Blair’s closest allies.
Meanwhile, the British government’s refusal to declassify secret documents was criticised by inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot and Lord Goldsmith. Sir Chilcot said he was frustrated by the action, while Lord Goldsmith said he did not agree with the decisions that had been made.