Executive
Summary
434.
In the letter
of 14 March 2003 from Lord Goldsmith’s office to No.10, which
is
addressed
in Section 5 of the Report, Mr Blair was told that an
essential ingredient of
the legal
basis was that he, himself, should be satisfied of the fact that
Iraq was in breach
of resolution
1441.
435.
In accordance
with that advice, it was Mr Blair who decided that, so far as
the
UK was
concerned, Iraq was and remained in breach of resolution
1441.
436.
Apart from
No.10’s response to the letter of 14 March, sent the following
day,
in terms
that can only be described as perfunctory, no formal record was
made of that
decision
and the precise grounds on which it was made remain
unclear.
437.
The Inquiry
was told, and it accepts, that it would have been possible at that
stage
for the UK
Government to have decided not to go ahead with military action if
it had
been
necessary to make a decision to do so; or if the House of Commons
on 18 March
had voted
against the Government.
438.
Although, when
resolution 1441 was adopted, there was unanimous support for
a
rigorous
inspections and monitoring regime backed by the threat of military
force as the
means to
disarm Iraq, there was no such consensus in the Security Council in
March
2003. If
the matter had been left to the Security Council to decide,
military action might
have been
postponed and, possibly, avoided.
439.
The Charter of
the United Nations vests responsibility for the
maintenance
of peace
and security in the Security Council. The UK Government was
claiming
to act
on behalf of the international community “to uphold the authority
of the Security
Council”,
knowing that it did not have a majority in the Security Council in
support of
its
actions. In those circumstances, the UK’s actions undermined
the authority of the
Security Council.
440.
A
determination by the Security Council on whether Iraq was in fact
in material
breach of
resolution 1441 would have furthered the UK’s aspiration to uphold
the
authority
of the Council.
441.
Following the
adoption of resolution 1441, a decision was taken to delay
the
receipt of
formal advice from Lord Goldsmith.
442.
On 11 November
2002, Mr Powell told Lord Goldsmith that there should
be
a meeting
some time before Christmas to discuss the legal
position.
443.
On 9 December,
formal “instructions” to provide advice were sent to
Lord
Goldsmith.
They were sent by the FCO on behalf of the FCO and the MOD
as
well as No.10.
63