The Report of the Iraq Inquiry

781. Lord Goldsmith replied on the morning of Monday 17 March to a Written Question

tabled by Baroness Ramsey of Cartvale (Labour):

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the Attorney General’s view of the legal

basis for the use of force against Iraq.”278

782. Mr Straw sent a copy of Lord Goldsmith’s Written Answer to Mr Donald Anderson,

Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), on the morning of 17 March, together

with an FCO paper giving “the legal background in more detail”.279

783. Lord Goldsmith’s Written Answer and Mr Straw’s letter to the Chairman of the

FAC, with a copy of Lord Goldsmith’s Answer and a FCO paper which addressed the

legal background, are addressed in Section 5.

784. To supplement the Command Paper of UN documents published in February

(Cm 5769), Mr Straw published a further Command Paper (Cm 5785) with UN

documents from early March.280

785. That comprised:

• Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei’s statements to the Security Council on 7 March;

• Mr Straw’s statement to the Security Council on 7 March;

• UNMOVIC’s 12th quarterly report to the Security Council: and

• UNMOVIC’s working document of “unresolved disarmament issues”, the

“clusters” document of 6 March 2003.

786. Mr Straw wrote to all Parliamentary colleagues with a copy of the FCO paper of

15 March on Iraq’s non-compliance (considered earlier in this Section), a copy of his

letter to the Chairman of the FAC, and copies of the statements made at the Azores

Summit the previous day.281

787. Mr Straw wrote that the FCO paper, ‘Iraqi Non-Compliance with UNSCR 1441’,

stated that Iraq had “failed to comply fully with 14 previous UN resolutions related

to WMD” and assessed Iraq’s “progress in complying with relevant provisions of

UNSCR 1441 with illustrative examples”.

278 House of Lords, Official Report, 17 March 2003, column 2WA.

279 Letter Straw to Anderson, 17 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Legal Position Concerning the Use of Force’ attaching

PQ and Paper FCO, 17 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Legal Basis for the Use of Force’.

280 Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 17 March 2003, Iraq – UN Documents of early March 2003,

Cm 5785.

281 Letter Straw to Parliamentary colleagues, 17 March 2003.

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