5 |
Advice on the legal basis for military action, November 2002 to
March 2003
729.
Lord Goldsmith
told the Inquiry that the main thrust of the meeting with
Mr Straw
on 13 March
was planning for what was going to happen.299
730.
Asked if the
record of the meeting on 13 March made by Mr Straw’s Private
Office
reflected
his recollection of the decision on how to present his legal advice
to Cabinet,
Lord
Goldsmith replied:
“It isn’t
actually. There wasn’t any question of distributing the longer FAC
document
as my
opinion. That wasn’t at all what I was going to
do.”300
731.
A note on the
Attorney General’s file listed the “further material to be
assembled”,
as
discussed by Lord Goldsmith and Mr Straw, as “evidence
showing” that Iraq was
“in further
material breach”, as:
“•
Any
examples of false statements/omissions and (significant)
non-co-operation
reported to
Security Council pursuant to OP4 of SCR 1441.
•
Any
examples of Iraqi interference reported by Blix or ElBaradei [Dr
Mohamed
ElBaradei,
the Director General of the IAEA] to the Council pursuant to
OP11.
•
For these
purposes, we need to trawl through statements from the
draft
Command
Paper on Iraqi non-compliance which is to be
published.
•
See
attached FCO paper Iraqi non-compliance with UNSCR 1441
of
732.
The last
meeting in Lord Goldsmith’s diary on 13 March was with Lord
Falconer,
who in
March 2003 was the Minister of State in the Home Office responsible
for Criminal
Justice,
and Baroness Morgan.
733.
Lord Goldsmith
informed Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan of his clear
view
that it was
lawful under resolution 1441 to use force without a further UN
resolution.302
734.
Asked to
comment on press allegations to the effect that he had been “more
or
less pinned
to the wall at a Downing Street showdown with Lord Falconer and
Baroness
Morgan who
allegedly had performed a pincer movement” on him, Lord Goldsmith
told
the Inquiry
that that was:
“… absolute
complete and utter nonsense. I had not spoken to Lord Falconer
about
this issue
before. When I saw them [on 13 March] I, of course, had reached
my
299
Public
hearing, 27 January 2010, page 198.
300
Public
hearing, 27 January 2010, page 213.
301
File note
[on Attorney General’s files], [undated], ‘Iraq Further Material to
be Assembled (as discussed
by the
Attorney General and Foreign Secretary on 13 March
2003)’.
302
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
paragraph
381.
131