5 |
Advice on the legal basis for military action, November 2002 to
March 2003
808.
Mr Blair
had replied on 14 March:
“There is a
longstanding convention, followed by successive Governments
and
reflected
in the Ministerial Code, that legal advice to the Government
remains
confidential.
This enables the Government to obtain frank and full legal
advice
in confidence,
as everyone else can.
“We always
act in accordance with international law. At the appropriate time
the
Government
would of course explain the legal basis for any military action
that may
809.
Mr Straw
sent a copy of Lord Goldsmith’s Written Answer to Mr Anderson,
the
Chairman of
the Foreign Affairs Committee, on the morning of 17 March, together
with
an FCO
paper giving “the legal background in more detail”.348
810.
The Inquiry
asked Ms Adams whether she agreed that the Attorney General
was
not giving
a Law Officer’s advice on 17 March. Ms Adams replied:
“He was
essentially asserting the Government’s view of the legal position,
which was
based on
his advice … I think that [using the Attorney General to make the
public
statement
on the legal position] may have been a mistake.”349
811.
Mr Macleod
had expressed a similar view:
“There is a
question whether it was right to place on the Attorney General the
onus
of
explaining the legal position publicly, so that he became perceived
as the arbiter
of whether
the war should take place or not. The general practice on other
legal
issues is
that the Attorney does not present the Government’s legal
position:
that is
left to the Minister with policy responsibility for the issue under
discussion.
That is
what was done in relation to Kosovo or Iraq in
1998.”350
812.
Sir Michael
Wood explicitly endorsed Mr Macleod’s view.351
813.
Lord Goldsmith
told the Inquiry:
“… there
was a huge interest in what my view was in relation to the legality
of war,
and I had
had, for example, almost weekly calls from the Shadow Attorney
General
[Mr Cash],
who had both been telling me what his view was, which was that it
was
lawful, and
saying ‘You will have to tell Parliament what your view is in
relation to this’.
347
House of
Commons, Official
Report, 14 March
2002, column 482W.
348
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’.
349
Public
hearing, 30 June 2010, page 52.
350
Statement,
24 June 2010, paragraph 33.
351
Statement,
15 March 2011, page 25.
145