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OK, so here’s the dealio. It seems that Goldsmith’s opinion, at least by March 2003, was that attacking Iraq would be legal. However, his legal advice was that it might not be. Got that?

MPs made the decision to go to war on the basis of Goldsmith’s personal opinion, not on the legal advice he gave in his professional capacity. Tony Blair was advised that the war could be illegal, MPs were not.

So that’s alright then.

—Update: Of course, the distinction between advice and opinion was not explained at the time. The shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram, certainly seemed unaware of the situation. He said the following during the parliamentary debate which ended with a vote for war:

“The next question is: is military action legal? I accept the Attorney-General’s advice. It is not the advice of an individual lawyer or legal expert but the considered legal advice of the person who is charged with the constitutional duty of advising the Government and the House on the legality or otherwise of actions. The House should give exceptional weight to that advice.”

He clearly believed the advice given by Lord Goldsmith to the government, in his professional capacity as Attorney General, to state unequivocally that war would be legal. Of course, nobody from the government corrected this misapprehension, because it was precisely what they wanted us all to think. Blair didn’t have to actually tell a direct lie, but the intention was obviously to mislead.

Oh, and here’s something Jack Straw said the day before the debate:

“Of course it would have been better if it had been possible to achieve a consensus in the United Nations for a second resolution, but there is no question about the legality of the action that we propose to take.” (My emphasis)

Remember that foreign office lawyers had been united in the view that a second UN security council resolution was necessary (according to John Kampfner), and that the second most senior lawyer in Jack Straw’s department resigned, saying that the invasion was a “crime of agression“. Jack Straw also saw Attorney General’s actual advice, which, according to Philippe Sands,

“recognised that if [the Attorney General's] argument were to come before a court of law it might well be unsuccessful, so that the use of force against Iraq could be found to be illegal.”

How then could Jack Straw tell the house that there was “no question” over the legality of the proposed war? Clearly, if the government were to release the Attorney General’s advice, it would show that Jack Straw lied to parliament.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2005 at 19:01 and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.