Iraq legal advice leaked - Update: More leaks!

[BBKing]

...to the Grauniad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...471658,00.html

Basically confirming what everyone thought it said - the attorney general said 'the war might well be illegal' before coming out 10 days later saying 'actually, it's not that illegal is it'.

I wonder who leaked it. Alastair Campbell, probably, since it shoots a lot of peoples' fox. Cynical, moi?

[Tuftus]

oops!!!

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by BBKing

Basically confirming what everyone thought it said - the attorney general said 'the war might well be illegal' before coming out 10 days later saying 'actually, it's not that illegal is it'.

That is what i would expect it to say- standard legal advice. It might be illegal.... but on the other hand... it might not, but either way i'm quite comfy sitting here on my fence

[Damien]

It just said what we already knew. It didnt help the government but it didnt help anyone else. What it did do was bring Iraq up again and the Blair issue again. Which is music to the Torys ears as there last week of campaigning is based on Blair anyway

[etccarmageddon]

The Conservative's voted FOR the Iraq war when the commons had a vote on it and if I remember rightly, they saved the day as a lot of Labour MPs were voting against it.

[Damien]

Yeah, but Howard isnt attacking the war. He still supports it and says it would vote the same way now. The thing is about blair and if he lied to go to war or if he had bad intelligence and went to war.

[punky]

Even if Saddam had disarmed everything, in a timely manner, I still would have voted to remove him. Tomorrow, if I had to.

Not that my opnion matters, but I still think the original resolutions are still active (no sunset clause, obligations not fulfilled in the appropriate timeframe).. This whole second resolution is not an issue. (its not ever a second resolution, Saddam has had enough of them in the past), but just shows what a complete waste of time the UN are. Whenever something comes up, they just talk about. They don't do anything about, just talk. A free trip to NYC with a nice bit of exes, an 18 year old prozzie, and a bit of shopping on 5th avenue to keep the missus happy - you can't blame them really.

Saying this won't increase my fanmail, but I can't see how anyone would protest to keep Saddam in power. Disagree with the war, by all means, it was badly handled most of the way through, but I just don't want to believe there's people out there who'd like who want to leave Saddam, with his sick f**kups for children in power. If they had their way, it would be Idi Amin all over again, where some of the biggest mass murderers in history get to live a life of luxury in a foreign country with full state protection.

Originally Posted by punky

I can't see how anyone would protest to keep Saddam in power.

Oh dear, more nonsense from the "right".

*NOBODY* has argued to keep Saddam in power. This is a typical distortion that the government has used to cloud this issue time and time again to try to get away from the fact that what they did was (even according to their own Attorney General, as has now been reveled) *illegal*.

Bush wanted a war, Bush got a war. Blair went along with him because he's an idiot.

I just don't want to believe there's people out there who'd like who want to leave Saddam [...] in power.

Then *don't* believe it and don't fall for the BS the government is peddling.

[punky]

Originally Posted by Graham

Oh dear, more nonsense from the "right".

*NOBODY* has argued to keep Saddam in power. This is a typical distortion that the government has used to cloud this issue time and time again to try to get away from the fact that what they did was (even according to their own Attorney General, as has now been reveled) *illegal*.

Noone like Galloway, France, Russia, Germany, China? Galloway isn't the only one of his ilk in this country. Furthermore, France was going to veto any new resolutions so we know what they wanted, to protect their purses. Was Galloway going to support the war if there was another resolution? Do you think everyone would have fell in line if there was another resolution? Or that regardless what happened, people would have protested the war? Look at the protests. There was plenty of support in there for Saddam, from the extreme left.

Bush wanted a war, Bush got a war. Blair went along with him because he's an idiot.

Says you. I'd tend to think its because Blair cares about people being killed and tortured under Saddam's rule, even when other people don't. I am no real fan of Blair, but I support Blair for his stance in removing Saddam, and personally I think the US should have gone back to remove Saddam and clear up the mess they left after Gulf war 1, or to make amends for selling Saddam weapons in the 80s (when everyone else was doing it).

Then *don't* believe it and don't fall for the BS the government is peddling.

Its nothing to do with the government, its to do with people knowing what Saddam and his sons used to get up to and people effectively saying: "that's ok, let's leave him be". I don't want to think people could, quite frankly, be so callous.

EDIT: To clarify, the last statement I made doesn't refer to protesters who merely wanted a second resolution before agreeing to war, only those who would oppose it under all circumstances.

[Chris]

Bliar has now published the full document. BBC Report here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politi...ge/4492439.stm

Download the document itself here (PDF):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...ey_general.pdf

Originally Posted by punky

Noone like Galloway, France, Russia, Germany, China?

Please show me anything where any of them said that Saddam should be *left *in power. They, as you, yourself said: "Disagree with the war, by all means" but I don't recall anyone saying "oh no, let's just leave him there and do nothing".

Says you. I'd tend to think its because Blair cares about people being killed and tortured under Saddam's rule, even when other people don't.

I suggest you visit Amnesty International's website http://amnesty.org/ and look at all the *other* examples of people being killed or tortured in the world and ask yourself why he isn't doing anything about *them* too.

And indeed Amnesty's current headline article states

"A year ago photographs of Iraqi detainees being tortured by the US military at Abu Ghraib prison shocked the world. Abuses by US forces in the “war on terror� have not been confined to Abu Ghraib; punishment of those involved or responsible has been inadequate; and torture is also used by the Iraqi security forces."

I am no real fan of Blair, but I support Blair for his stance in removing Saddam

I am no fan of Blair and think he has lied, distorted, evaded and resorted to post-fact justifications for an illegal war.

EDIT: To clarify, the last statement I made doesn't refer to protesters who merely wanted a second resolution before agreeing to war, only those who would oppose it under all circumstances.

In the words of our own Attorney General:

"regime change cannot be the objective of military action" although removing Saddam Hussein would be legal "if it can be demonstrated that such action is a necessary and proportionate measure to secure the disarmament of Iraq".

Given that it has now been shown that Iraq did *not* have WMDs and thus the "disarmament" of Iraq was *not* necessary, the only conclusion is that this was an *ILLEGAL* action and I don't know about you, but I think it's a *good* idea to oppose illegal actions, no matter how morally justified you may consider them because that leads down a very dangerous path.

[zovat]

Ok, here is my only post on this thread.

Blair followed the advice he wanted to hear (as have we all from time to time).

statement 1 - "not sure - may be illegal - may not".
statement 2 - "not illegal in terms of the resolutions thus far passed"

pretty similar - just a different angle.

Personally, Saddam needed ousting, this was the best chance of that happening (as already stated by others, France had already said that they would veto any further UN resolution).

Various states had a lot of money invested in SH (including the UK), and some of those were more afraid of losing that investment, than what SH was doing to his people, and what WMD he either did or did not have (even if he did not have them, the scientists to make them were still in Iraq, and he still had labs that could produce them if required).

<off topic slightly>
To those that want us to withdraw from Iraq before an Iraqi government is fully established and supported (including having the Iraqi Defense Force trained and fully manned), I can only say - do you want the sacrifices made by those of us that fought, and more importantly those that died, to give the average Iraqi their freedom to be for nought, by withdrawing from the country and leaving it to decline into civil war, and have another dictator take power ?

<back on topic>

It has been established that there was some "less that sound" information on which the decision was based - but lets stop bleating about that, and concentrate on how we can get the country stable, and get our boys back home knowing that the job is complete, and our comrades died for a reason..

[Chris]

For me, the only issue today is:

Attorney General, 7 March 2003: "the language of resolution 1441 leaves the position unclear." and "...there are a number of ways in which the opponents of military action might seek to bring a legal case ... against the UK ... we cannot be certain that they would not succeed."

Letter from no.10 to Attoney General, 15 March 2003: "it is indeed the prime minister's unequivocal view that Iraq is in further material breach of its obligations".

Lord Goldsmith, 17 March 2003:
"Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of resolution 678, 687, and 1441.

"The Security Council also decided that if Iraq failed at any time to comply with and cooperate fully with the implementation of 1441, that would constitute a further material breach.

"It is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply and therefore Iraq was at the time of resolution 1441 and continues to be in material breach.

"Resolution 1441 would have provided that a further decision of the Security Council to sanction force was required if that had been intended. All it requires is reporting to and discussion by the Security Council of Iraq's failures, but not an express further decision to authorise force."


What the ...

'Tail wagging the dog' springs to mind.

[BBKing]

"it is indeed the prime minister's unequivocal view that Iraq is in further material breach of its obligations".

I'm rapidly entering brain meltdown here, but doesn't Lord Goldsmith's advice (very strongly worded, incidentally) on the 7th say that it *isn't* the PM's role to decide whether Iraq was in breach. Even if his view was unequivocal, it still wasn't his job to decide. Yet ten days later it suddenly is his role and the war's legal because Tony says it's legal? This stinks of herrings somewhere.

The 'you'd have left Saddam in power' argument is the last throw of a very dirty dice. He was 66 years old, bluffing on no cards, wasn't in control of more than the middle slice of his country (remember the Kurds have had democracy for years under UN-mandated no-fly zones), didn't have an army worth the name and was desperate to avoid people seeing him as being as weak as he was (scared of Iran, scared of internal dissent). Quite why we needed to enhance his big bad boy image by pretending he was about to attack us all with non-existent weapons is beyond me - portraying him as he really was would have been quite damaging to his prestige.

We could have got him out without war (and without the sacrifice of, thankfully, not many lives on our side), but that would have left the country run by the Iraqis, the US without its airbases, its lucrative contracts for friends of George, its secure, pliant base in the middle of the Middle East and of course the undemocratic restructuring of the Iraqi economy along neo-liberal lines without so much as asking the people first. By the time the Iraqis get a representative government (next year, actually) the economy will effectively be out of their control and in the hands of the corporations, the rape will be complete. Fallujah will still be in ruins though. Still, hey ho, another day, another dollar.

Excellent post BB.

I tend to agree with Andrew Marr's analysis that the Government made it much worse by not disclosing this document much earlier. One of the big questions to emerge is the style of Government pursued by Blair and following Mrs T's lead - ie, he knows best. To not provide the Cabinet with all the evidence on an issue of such importance beggars belief. The fact that the Attorney General's deputy resigned over this issue also speaks volumes.

Meanwhile this secretive and manipulative govt continues with such idiocy as ID cards. I know this takes us into new territory - but,I wouldn't trust Blair not to abuse such a system on the evidence of the handling of this issue.