The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
163.
Lord Turnbull
told the Inquiry that he, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of
the
Defence
Staff (CDS), the diplomatic service and others were all clients for
Lord
Goldsmith’s
advice.64
The
characterisation of Mr Blair as the client was not “a very
good
description
of the importance of this advice”.
164.
In his written
statement, Lord Goldsmith cited his telephone call with
Mr Powell
on 11
November and the meeting on 19 December as occasions when he had
been
“discouraged
from providing” his advice.65
165.
Asked if he
was aware that Lord Goldsmith felt he was being discouraged,
Mr Blair
told the
Inquiry:
“I think it
was more that we knew obviously when we came to the point of
decision
we were
going to need formal advice. We knew also this was a very tricky
and
difficult
question. It was important actually that he gave this advice. I
think the only
concern,
and I am speaking from memory here; generating bits of paper the
entire
time on it,
but, I mean, it was obviously important that he was
involved.”66
166.
As agreed
with Mr Powell on 19 December 2002, Lord Goldsmith handed
his
draft
advice to Mr Blair on 14 January 2003.
167.
The draft
advice stated that a further decision by the Security Council
would
be required
to revive the authorisation to use force contained in resolution
678
(1990)
although that decision did not need to be in the form of a further
resolution.
168.
Lord
Goldsmith saw no grounds for self-defence or
humanitarian
intervention
providing the legal basis for military action in Iraq.
169.
Lord
Goldsmith’s draft advice did not explicitly address the
possibility,
identified
by the Law Officers in 1997, of other “exceptional
circumstances”
arising if
the international community “as a whole” had accepted that Iraq
had
repudiated
the cease-fire, but the Security Council was “unable to
act”.
170.
The advice
did, however, address both the precedent of Kosovo and
the
question of
whether a veto exercised by a Permanent Member of the
Security
Council
might be deemed to be unreasonable, stating that the Kosovo
precedent
did not
apply in the prevailing circumstances of Iraq; and that there was
no
“room for
arguing that a condition of reasonableness [could] be implied
as
a precondition
for the exercise of a veto”.
64
Public
hearing, 25 January 2011, page 28.
65
Statement,
4 January 2011, paragraph 4.2.
66
Public
hearing, 21 January 2011, page 59.
36