Iraq inquiry hears damning evidence from legal advisers

Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Evidence from a former legal adviser suggests that former British prime minister Tony Blair and his foreign secretary were set on going to war with Iraq regardless of legality qualms.

Appearing before Britain's inquiry into the country's role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the chief legal adviser to then foreign secretary Jack Straw said he had warned the official that the conflict would be illegal under international law.

Sir Michael Wood also stressed that it would "amount to the crime of aggression."

During the same session on Tuesday, another advisor, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, said ministers did not properly address the legal case for the invasion and the process was "lamentable."

Wilmshurst was the Foreign Office lawyer who controversially resigned in protest at the Iraq war.

Last week, declassified letters from April 2002 showed that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who gave a legal green light for the invasion, wrote a letter of warning to discourage former defense minister Geof Hoon from a military action he deemed illegal.

Ahead of his own testimony earlier this month, Straw leaked a secret letter he had written to Blair urging him against leading the country into war.

But the new evidence shows he was not very keen on avoiding the conflict.

He told Wood not to blow the whistle on the legality of the war, saying he was being "dogmatic" and that "international law was pretty vague," Sir Michael said.

On January 12, an independent commission's investigation into the Netherlands' support for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq said the US and Britain rushed to war without sufficient legal backing under international law.

The commission's 551-page report said UN resolutions prior to the outbreak of the war did not provide a mandate for the attack.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117130§ionid=351020601.