5 |
Advice on the legal basis for military action, November 2002 to
March 2003
402.
A minute from
Ms Adams to Lord Goldsmith, in preparation for a meeting
with
Mr Straw
on 3 February, makes clear that Lord Goldsmith planned to give
Mr Straw
a copy
of his draft advice of 14 January and his minute to Mr Blair
of 30 January.157
403.
Ms Adams also
wrote:
“David
[Brummell] has not yet been able to get hold of Jonathan Powell,
despite
several
attempts. We do not therefore know whether No.10 is content for you
to
pass your
draft advice to the Foreign Secretary.”
404.
There is no
record of the meeting on 3 February. There was no copy of
Lord
Goldsmith’s
minute to Mr Blair of 30 January in the papers provided by the
FCO to the
Inquiry or
anything to indicate that Mr Straw received a
copy.
405.
Mr Straw’s
Private Office sent Mr Brummell, “as promised”, the draft of a
letter from
Mr Straw
to Lord Goldsmith on 4 February.158
The letter
was also sent to Sir Christopher
Meyer,
British Ambassador to the US, Sir David Manning and
Mr Powell.
406.
In his letter
of 6 February, which was unchanged from the draft, Mr Straw
wrote
that he had
been asked by Lord Goldsmith in the last week of January if he had
seen
Lord
Goldsmith’s draft “opinion” on Iraq.159
407.
Mr Straw
had seen Lord Goldsmith’s draft advice, but he:
“… had not
had a chance to study it in detail. This I have now done. I would
be very
grateful if
you would carefully consider my comments below before coming to
a
final
conclusion and I would appreciate a conversation with you as well.
As you will
be aware I
was immersed in the line-by-line negotiations of the resolution,
much of
which was
conducted capital to capital with P5 Foreign
Ministers.”
“It goes
without saying that a unanimous and express Security Council
authorisation
would be
the safest basis for the use of force against Iraq. But I have
doubts about
the
negotiability of this in current circumstances. We are likely to
have to go for
something
less. You will know the UK attaches high priority to achieving a
second
resolution
for domestic policy reasons and to ensure wide international
support for
any
military action. This was the case the Prime Minister was making in
Washington
[on 31
January]. We are working hard to achieve it.”
409.
Referring to
his minute to Mr Wood of 29 January, Mr Straw stated that
he “had
been very
forcefully struck by a paradox in the culture of Government
lawyers, which is
that the
less certain the law is, the more certain in their views they
become”.
157
Minute
Adams to Attorney General, 3 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Key
Papers’.
158
Letter
Sinclair to Brummell, 4 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Second
Resolution’.
159
Letter
Straw to Goldsmith, 6 February 2003, ‘Iraq: Second
Resolution’.
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