The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
Memorandum’
for the Inquiry, without being fully alive to the fact that the
legal issues
were finely
balanced. Mr Straw replied:
“The
Cabinet were fully aware that the arguments were finely balanced.
It was
impossible
to open a newspaper without being fully aware of the
arguments.”385
866.
In response to
the point that newspaper articles were not legal advice,
Mr Straw
added:
“With great
respect, we had lawyers from both sides arguing the case in the
public
print. So
it was very clear … that there were two arguments going on. One
was
about the …
moral and political justification, and that, in many ways, in the
public
print,
elided with arguments about whether it was lawful … no one in the
Cabinet
was unaware
of the fact that there had been and was a continuing and intense
legal
debate
about the interpretation of 1441 … But the issue for the Cabinet
was: was
it lawful
or otherwise?
“… [W]hat
was required … at that stage was essentially a yes/no decision from
the
Attorney
General, yes/no for the Cabinet, yes/no for the military forces. It
was open
to members
of the Cabinet to question the Attorney General … it wasn’t
necessary
to go into
the process by which Peter Goldsmith had come to his view. What
they
wanted to
know was what the answer was.”386
867.
Mr Straw
told the Inquiry:
“… any
member of the Cabinet could easily have asked about the finely
balanced
nature [of
the legal arguments] … [T]he finely balanced arguments are part of
the
process by
which he came to that decision.
“… He was
going through all the arguments …
“But there
is nothing unusual about legal decisions being finely balanced …
[W]hat
Cabinet
wanted … and needed to know … was what was the
decision.
“Nobody was
preventing anybody from asking the Attorney … what the position
was.
In the
event they chose not to. A number of lawyers were around the table.
The legal
issues had
been extremely well aired in public, the press, and people were
briefed
868.
Asked for an
assurance that Cabinet was sufficiently informed, separately
and
collectively,
to share responsibility for the risks a decision to invade Iraq
entailed,
“including
risks, individual and collective, to Crown Servants, and …
themselves”,
Mr Straw
replied: “yes”.388
385
Public
hearing, 8 February 2010, page 59.
386
Public
hearing, 8 February 2010, pages 59-60.
387
Public
hearing, 8 February 2010, pages 62-63.
388
Public
hearing, 8 February 2010, page 64.
156