Blair has to 'please explain'

2005-04-28 07:48

London - British Prime Minister Tony Blair has come under fresh attack over the legality of the Iraq war just a week before elections, after advice given by the attorney general on the issue was leaked to the media.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was dispatched within hours of the revelations late on Wednesday to do a round of television interviews, in a bid to control political damage to Blair's Labour Party, which is seeking a third consecutive term.

The extract of a confidential note sent to Blair by Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith in March 2003, leaked to British media, expressed some doubt as to whether a further United Nations resolution was needed to approve an invasion of Iraq.

The note was sent on March 7, two weeks before the British-United States assault and months after the UN Security Council had passed resolution 1441 warning of "serious consequences" for Saddam Hussein's regime if it remained in "material breach" of UN demands concerning his alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Why did he change his mind?

Goldsmith's summary of his legal opinion 10 days later, which was delivered to parliament, stated clearly that an invasion of Iraq would be legal.

Opposition politicians and anti-war activists latched onto the difference in Goldsmith's documents to argue that the attorney general had changed his mind, and to push for full disclosure of his seven-page legal note given to Blair.

The prime minister has steadfastly refused to release that information - even as polls show that his reputation has been shaken over his Iraq policy, and as rivals attack him as untrustworthy.

Goldsmith dismissed the media frenzy, saying that the document showed he had given consistent advice but had laid out the complicated legal questions beforehand to Blair.

In the leaked extract of the March 7 advice given to the prime minister, the attorney general said it was "unclear" whether resolution 1441 permitted military action.

By March 17 - the eve of the key parliamentary vote on whether to go to war - Goldsmith said it was "plain" Iraq was in breach of its international obligations and that attacking the country would be legal.

"What the public must now have an answer to is this: what, or who, changed the attorney general's mind?" Conservative leader Michael Howard said.

Straw, trying to calm the public furore that erupted after the leak Wednesday, told the BBC that between March 7 and 17 "circumstances" had changed which had affected Goldsmith's advice.

Straw said Britain had nevertheless always wanted another resolution for political, if not legal, reasons.

British media linked the leak to the election campaign, with the right-wing Daily Express tabloid calling it "the big lie: final proof that Blair deceived the nation" and many others contrasting the affair with the premier's declaration, only hours earlier, "I have never told a lie."

- AFP