[UK] Attorney general rejects idea he was 'leant on' over Iraq advice

[TheGunslinger]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050526/wl_uk_afp/iraqbritainlegal

LONDON (AFP) - The top legal officer has dismissed as "fantasy" the notion he was pressured by the government into ruling the Iraq war did not contravene international law.

"I stand by my conclusion that military action was lawful," Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith told The Daily Telegraph newspaper, breaking his silence on what was a major issue of controversy in the general election earlier this month.

"That was a judgement I had to reach. I reached it and I stand by it," Goldsmith said.

"And I want to reject the suggestions that I was leant on, or that this somehow was not genuinely my view -- these are fantasies and they need to be seen as such."


Took him almost a month to cave into pressure from the * White House to say something re: the Downing Street Minutes?

[Stockholm]

1. "had to reach" n/t

[rodeodance]

2. wonder if the cable media will be quick to pick it up?

.........Three days before the US-led, British-backed invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, Goldsmith told parliament that it was permitted under international law even without a final United Nations resolution to authorise it.

However, opposition politicians charged that Goldsmith had earlier told Prime Minister Tony Blair and other ministers that he had severe doubts about the conflict's legality, and was pressured into changing his view.

Blair and Goldsmith consistently refused to release this confidential legal advice to ministers, but the document was released just before the May 5 election after extracts of it were leaked to the press.

In the March 7, 2003 memo, Goldsmith seemed to doubt whether Iraq could legitimately be attacked without one final resolution ordering dictator Saddam Hussein to fully cooperate with UN inspectors and abandon his suspected development of weapons of mass destruction.

[TheGunslinger]

3. Anything to shed a discrediting light on this...

I'm sure it will be a FOX News Alert today.

[TheGunslinger]

5. Meaning: "The conclusion I *needed* to come to"

[Solly Mack]

4. Well gee, let's think about this. 1#- I want to go to war.

2#- Some people may find my war illegal.3# - I am the one who determines what is legal. 4# - I get my war and it's legal. (rocket-scientist time)

EVERYTHING Hitler did was legal because he determined what was legal.

[AlinPA]

6. (Removed by myself; wrong thread! Sorry)

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. But the Foreign Office legal adviser says he changed his mind

In her resignation letter, Elizabeth Wilmshurst wrote:

1. I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution to revive the authorisation given in SCR 678. I do not need to set out my reasoning; you are aware of it. My views accord with the advice that has been given consistently in this Office (the foreign office legal team office) before and after the adoption of UN security council resolution 1441 and with what the Attorney General gave us to understand was his view prior to his letter of 7 March. (The view expressed in that letter has of course changed again into what is now the official line.)

I cannot in conscience go along with advice - within the Office or to the public or Parliament - which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression; nor can I agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law.

http://www.channel4.com/news/2005/03/week_4/23_letter.html

[Roland99]

8. Kept changing it until he got it "right"?