5 |
Advice on the legal basis for military action, November 2002 to
March 2003
840.
Lord Goldsmith
told the Inquiry that he had attended Cabinet:
“… ready to
answer any questions which were put to me and to explain my
advice.
Certainly
the view I took was that producing my answer to Parliament would be
a
good
framework for explaining to them what the legal advice was, and I
would have
been happy
to answer the questions which were put to me. I was ready, fully
briefed,
ready to
debate all these issues.
“What
actually happened was that I started to go through the PQ
[Parliamentary
Question],
which had been handed out as this framework. Somebody, I
can’t
remember
who it was, said ‘You don’t need to do that. We can read it.’ I was
actually
trying to
use it as a sort of framework for explaining the position, and
there was a
question
that was then put. I do recall telling Cabinet, ‘Well there is
another point of
view, but
this is the conclusion that I have reached’, and then the
discussion on the
legality
simply stopped, and Cabinet then went on to discuss all the other
issues,
the effect
on international relations, domestic policy, and all the rest of
it.
“So the way
it took place was that I was ready to answer questions and to deal
with
them and in
the event that debate did not take place.”361
841.
Lord Turnbull
told the Inquiry that there was:
“… a kind
of tradition which says you rely on the Attorney General to
produce
definitive
advice. Once he has done it, you don’t say, ‘I don’t think much of
that’.
His job
is to produce the version we can all work on.”362
842.
Mr Blair
told the Inquiry:
“The whole
purpose of having the Attorney there … was so that he could
answer
anybody’s
questions …”363
843.
Ms Short told
the Inquiry that she thought that Lord Goldsmith had:
“… misled
the Cabinet. He certainly misled me, but people let it through … I
think
now we know
everything we know about his doubts and his changes of opinion
and
what the
Foreign Office Legal Advisers were saying and that he had got this
private
side deal
that Tony Blair said there was a material breach when Blix was
saying
he needed
more time. I think for the Attorney General to come and say there
is
an unequivocal
legal authority to go to war was misleading.”364
361
Public
hearing, 27 January 2010, pages 214-215.
362
Public
hearing, 13 January 2010, page 69.
363
Public
hearing, 29 January 2010, page 233.
364
Public
hearing, 2 February 2010, page 24.
151