6.2 |
Military planning for the invasion, January to March
2003
advice of 7
March before Mr Blair’s meeting on 11 March, but it is not clear
how and
when it
reached them.
578.
Ms Cathy
Adams, Legal Counsellor in the Legal Secretariat to the Law
Officers,
advised
Lord Goldsmith that she understood “the principal purpose of the
meeting to
be to
discuss the ad bellum issue”.191
579.
An hour before
the meeting took place, MOD Legal Advisers provided questions
for
Mr Hoon to
raise at the meeting, explaining:
“… some in
the FCO – whether having read the AG [Attorney General]’s letter or
not,
I don’t
know – are beginning to believe that the legal base is already OK.
It seems to
us – and I
have discussed this with Martin Hemming [the MOD Legal Adviser] –
that
the
position is not yet so clear.”192
580.
The document
provided for Mr Hoon stated:
“Questions
for the Attorney General
“If no 2nd
resolution is adopted (for whatever reason), and the PM decides
that
sufficient
evidence exists that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity
to comply
offered by
1441, is he satisfied that the currently proposed use of force
would be
lawful
under international law?
“Comment:
The AG’s minute to the PM is equivocal: he says ‘a reasonable
case
can be
made’ [for the revival argument] but also says that his view is
that ‘different
considerations
apply in different circumstances’ [meaning the nature of the
Security
Council
discussions under OP12]. He ends his summary thus: ‘If we fail to
achieve
the
adoption of a second resolution we would need to consider urgently
at that stage
the
strength of our legal case in the light of circumstances at the
time’.
“If the
answer is yes to the above, can it be assumed that the Attorney
will be able
to confirm
formally at the time that CDS’s order to implement the planned
operation
would be a
lawful order (anybody subject to military law commits an offence if
he
disobeys
any lawful command).
“Comment:
Notwithstanding the current uncertainties, when it comes to the
crunch,
CDS will
need to be assured that his orders are lawful. As the Attorney
points out
in his
letter, ‘on previous occasions when military action was taken on
the basis of
a
reasonably arguable case, the degree of public and Parliamentary
scrutiny of the
legal issue
was nothing like as great as it is today’.”
191
Minute
Adams to Attorney General, 11 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Meeting at No.10,
1PM’.
192
Email DG
OpPol-S to SofS-Private Office-S [MOD], 11 March 2003, ‘Urgent for
Peter Watkins’ attaching
Paper
‘Questions for the Attorney General’.
477