The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
33.
Mr Straw
and Lord Goldsmith agreed that the “different options should be
explored”:
“Mr Straw
… would arrange for all the details of the negotiating history … to
be sent
to the
Attorney General, so that the Attorney could consider further the
legal position
in the
event that Iraq were (as expected) sooner or later to fail to
comply with
resolution
1441 and there were to be no second resolution.”
34.
On timing,
Mr Straw “thought the crunch point” would come soon after 8
December,
the
deadline for Iraq to make its declaration on its weapons of mass
destruction (WMD)
programmes.
There was a “high likelihood/probability that Iraq would produce
only a
‘partial
declaration’, with the likelihood that soon after … a report of
Iraq’s inadequate/
incomplete/inaccurate
declaration would be made to the Security Council (pursuant
to
OP
[operative paragraph] 4)”.
35.
Asked about
the conversations with Mr Powell and Mr Straw on 11
and
12 November
2002, Lord Goldsmith told the Inquiry:
“There is …
I see this quite a lot in government … also the problem that
sometimes
the
qualifications to what you have said don’t seem to be heard as
clearly as you
intended
them to be. I have heard the expression about the ‘yes, but’ and
the ‘but’
is forgotten,
in another context … [S]ometimes, therefore, you have to shout the
‘but’
rather
harder than you would normally, to make sure it is not
forgotten.”4
36.
Asked whether
the Chinese whispers came from No.10, Lord Goldsmith
replied:
“Wherever
the ‘Chinese whispers’ had been coming from, what mattered was
their
view, and
each time I did say, ‘I want this to be understood’, the response I
always
got was,
‘Yes, that is understood’, and sometimes afterwards you wondered if
that’s
the way
everyone was acting.”5
37.
Lord Goldsmith
told the Inquiry that the conversation with Mr Straw on 12
November
was the
point when it was agreed that he would receive a formal request for
advice:
“I think
there was an important moment after [resolution] 1441 when I had
a
conversation
with Mr Straw and I hadn’t at that stage received what I would
call
38.
Lord Goldsmith
told the Inquiry that barristers work by receiving “instructions”;
that
is, a
request to advise, including the detail of the question and the
supporting materials,
often with
the instructing solicitor’s views expressed. He said:
“… until I
had had that, particularly the Foreign Office Legal Adviser’s point
of view,
and been
able to analyse that, I wasn’t really in a position to give a
definitive point
of view …
So I think there then came this moment when it was agreed that I
would
4
Public
hearing, 27 January 2010, pages 54-55.
5
Public
hearing, 27 January 2010, page 55.
6
Public
hearing, 27 January 2010, page 56.
10