The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“… it would
not have been possible to have softened those conditions, and so it
was
absolutely
essential, as far as the British Government was
concerned.”191
485.
Lord
Goldsmith advised Mr Blair on 30 July that military action would
be
unlawful
without a new determination by the Security Council of a material
and
flagrant
breach by Iraq of its obligations. A new Security Council
resolution
explicitly
authorising the use of force would be the most secure and
preferred
legal basis
for the use of force.
486.
A report that
Mr Blair had been told “by the Government’s lawyers that
British
participation
in an invasion of Iraq would be illegal” appeared in
The
Independent on
29
July.192
The article
also stated that senior government sources had said that Mr
Blair
had “also
received conflicting legal opinion from law officers that current
UN resolutions
could offer
sufficient cover for any military action”.
487.
Lord Goldsmith
sent Mr Blair a 16-paragraph minute on 30 July.193
He wrote
that,
as the
record of the 23 July meeting set out his views “only in summary
form”, and “given
the
importance of this matter”, he had thought he should set out his
advice “more fully”.
488.
Lord Goldsmith
recapitulated the advice he had given at the 23 July
meeting
and stated:
“A new
Security Council resolution explicitly authorising the use of force
under
Chapter VII
would plainly be the most secure, and preferred, legal basis for
military
action in
the current situation. The question is whether anything less than
this would
make
military action lawful.”
489.
Addressing
that question, Lord Goldsmith quoted the advice provided
by
Mr John Morris
(Attorney General 1997 to 1999), supported by Lord Falconer
(as
Solicitor
General), to Mr Blair in November 1997:
“Charles
[Lord Falconer] and I remain of the view that, in the
circumstances
presently
prevailing, an essential precondition of the renewed use of force
to
compel
compliance with the cease-fire conditions is that the Security
Council has,
in whatever
language – whether expressly or impliedly – stated that there has
been
a breach of
the cease-fire conditions and that the Council considers the
breach
sufficiently
grave to undermine the basis or effective operation of the
cease-fire.”
490.
Lord Goldsmith
advised that reliance on the “revival” of the authorisation for
the
use of
force in resolution 678 (1990) had been controversial when it was
invoked by the
191
Public
hearing, 30 November 2009, page 56.
192
The
Independent, 29 July
2002, Blair is
warned assault on Iraq would be ‘illegal’.
193
Minute
Goldsmith to Prime Minister, 30 July 2002, ‘Iraq’.
84