6.2 |
Military planning for the invasion, January to March
2003
568.
Lord
Goldsmith’s advice of 7 March, which set out his reasoning in
considerable
depth, is
addressed in detail in Section 5.186
569.
Lord
Goldsmith’s conclusions are summarised in the Box
below.
Lord
Goldsmith identified three possible bases for the use of military
force. He explained
that
neither self-defence nor the use of force to avert overwhelming
humanitarian
catastrophe
applied in this case.
Lord
Goldsmith concluded that he remained “of the opinion that the
safest legal course
would be to
secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of
force”,
and that he
had “already advised” that he did “not believe that such a
resolution need
be explicit
in its terms” if it established that the Security Council had
“concluded” that Iraq
had “failed
to take the final opportunity offered by resolution
1441”.
Lord
Goldsmith added:
“Nevertheless,
having regard to the information on the negotiating history
which
I have been
given and to the arguments of the US Administration which I heard
in
Washington,
I accept that a reasonable case can be made that resolution 1441
is
capable in
principle of reviving the authorisation in 678 without a further
resolution.”
Lord
Goldsmith added that that would:
“… only be
sustainable if there are strong factual grounds for concluding that
Iraq
has failed
to take the final opportunity. In other words, we would need to be
able
to
demonstrate hard evidence of non-compliance and non-co-operation.
Given
the
structure of the resolution as a whole, the views of UNMOVIC and
the IAEA
[International
Atomic Energy Agency] will be highly significant in this respect.
In
the light
of the latest reporting by UNMOVIC, you will need to consider
extremely
carefully
whether the evidence … is sufficiently compelling to justify the
conclusion
that Iraq
has failed to take the final opportunity.”
570.
Lord Goldsmith
stressed, in paragraph 36 of his advice, that the lawfulness
of
military
action depended on the question of proportionality as well as the
existence of
a legal
basis:
“Any force
used pursuant to the authorisation in resolution 678:
•
must have
as its objective the enforcement [of] the terms of the
cease-fire
contained
in resolution 687 [1991] and subsequent relevant
resolutions;
•
be limited
to what is necessary to achieve that objective; and
•
must be a
proportionate response to that objective, ie securing
compliance
with Iraq’s
disarmament obligations.”
186
Minute
Goldsmith to Prime Minister, 7 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Resolution
1441’.
475