The Guardian [UK]

02/23/05

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned less than two weeks before the invasion of Iraq that military action could be ruled illegal. The government was so concerned that it might be prosecuted it set up a team of lawyers to prepare for legal action in an international court. And a parliamentary answer issued days before the war in the name of Lord Goldsmith -- but presented by ministers as his official opinion before the crucial Commons vote -- was drawn up in Downing Street, not in the attorney general's chambers. The full picture of how the government manipulated the legal justification for war, and political pressure placed on its most senior law officer, is revealed in the Guardian today. It appears that Lord Goldsmith never wrote an unequivocal formal legal opinion that the invasion was lawful, as demanded by Lord Boyce, chief of defence staff at the
time...

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1423304,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



UK: New evidence shows No 10 'push to war' :

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, was at the centre of a deepening row today over his advice on the legality of the Iraq war.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/16847366?source=Evening%20Standard
http://tinyurl.com/4f7er


From Information Clearing House