Being a novice at Doublethink I’m struggling somewhat with these two statements from the Attorney General over whether he equivocated over his legal advice with regard to the Iraq war and whether his subsequent summary of that advice given in an answer to a parliamentary question was in fact written by Number 10:

To Newsnight:

“In my parliamentary answer on March 17 2003, I explained my genuinely held, independent view, that military action was lawful under the existing security council resolutions.

“It was certainly not a view that I expressed as a result of being leaned on in any way, nor as I have already made clear, was it written by or at Number 10.”

To Lord Butler, during his inquiry into intelligence failures concerning WMD:

On May 5 2004, Lord Goldsmith told Lord Butler: “I conveyed [my] view … in a meeting on March 13 with Baroness Morgan and Lord Falconer.”

Lord Butler: Was that formally minuted?

Lord Goldsmith: I can’t say. I do not know what minutes Number 10 may have of it. They shortly, of course, set out my view in a PQ [parliamentary question].

(My emphasis)

So which is it to be? Lord Goldsmith told Lord Butler that Baroness Morgan and Lord Falconer set out his answer. But in his statement to Newsnight he denies this.

This sounds very similar the the intelligence about WMD - it wasn’t concrete enough to justify war and had to be hardened up by Number 10 who removed all the caveats. Was Lord Goldsmith’s advice on the legality of the war treated in a similar fashion? Was it also not concrete enough so Baroness Morgan and Lord Falconer stiffened it up by writing the answer to the parliamentary question?

The only way to be sure would, of course, to see Lord Goldsmith’s advice in full.

“Lord Falconer, the constitutional affairs secretary, has repeatedly said that the files will never willingly be disclosed.”

Because, it puts the likes of Falconer and Goldsmith doubly up to their necks in it - to have lied about the legality of the war and then to have lied about lying about the legality of the war.

Posted on February 24th, 2005 at 1:54 pm

See also • Not Dead Only Sleeping: The Attorney General’s Advice • Compare and Contrast • Danger UXB		• Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe • Print
• Filed under Iraq, T.W.A.T., UK politics		•