Leaked war document lands Blair in hot water

The Iraq war has been thrust to the top of the May 5 British election agenda after the Attorney-General's advice to Prime Minister Tony Blair on the conflict's legality was leaked.

The leak revealed that 12 days before Britain went to war, Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith warned Blair in a 13-page memo of six reasons why the war could be illegal.

In spite of assurances that the Attorney-General had been "unequivocal" in saying the war would be legal, Goldsmith said Britain could be challenged under international law because it was up to the United Nations, not Blair, to decide whether Saddam Hussein was in breach of UN resolutions.

He said it would be "safer" to obtain a second resolution to justify using military force.

Goldsmith also cast doubt on the earlier UN resolution secured at the time that military action was used against Saddam to free Kuwait in 1990 of Iraqi forces as the basis for fresh military action.

Ministers have repeatedly insisted that resolution 678 allowed military action to be used, but Goldsmith cast doubts on the legality of such action.

Goldsmith's hitherto unpublished advice to Blair appeared to contradict the assurances given to the Cabinet in a two-page report on March 17 and repeated to Parliament that the Government's most senior law officer was unequivocal.

The leak sparked the most bitter personal attacks on Blair of the campaign so far, with Opposition leader Michael Howard calling him a liar.

The Conservative Party leader said Blair had overstated the "sporadic and patchy" intelligence gathered by Britain's intelligence services on whether Iraq had banned weapons.

"He has told lies to win elections," Howard told BBC television. "On the one thing on which he has taken a stand in the eight years he has been Prime Minister, which is taking us to war, he didn't even tell the truth on that."

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said it would put trust in Blair at the heart of the election and turn the contest into a referendum on Blair's integrity.

The Liberal Democrats yesterday published anti-war advertisements depicting Blair and United States President George W. Bush smiling with the message: "Never Again".

Kennedy called for a public inquiry into Blair's conduct.

"Tony Blair claims his Government has been open and straightforward on Iraq but every piece of information has been wrung out of them in the face of stiff resistance."

A senior Labour strategist dismissed allegations that there had been a cover-up about the war as "garbage". Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown planned to refocus on the economy in British cities today.

"I did what I honestly believe was the right thing to do," Blair told the Daily Mirror. "We know Saddam had WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] and we know we haven't found them. But he definitely had them because he used them against his own people."

Goldsmith's 13-page report, delivered on March 7, 2003, was hedged with doubts and misgivings. Goldsmith virtually wrung his hands at the dilemma he faced in trying to deliver advice that would satisfy a Prime Minister set on military action.

Having failed to come to a definitive view on the legality of the war, he was under pressure by Downing St to refine his advice.

On March 13, he met Lord Falconer, a friend of the Prime Minister, and Baroness Morgan, Blair's political secretary, at Downing St for an informal meeting, where no notes appear to have been taken.

The next day, Goldsmith's private secretary wrote to the Prime Minister's office, seeking reassurances that in Downing St's opinion Saddam was in breach of resolution 1441 because he was concealing his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Blair's private secretary confirmed it was his view that Saddam was in breach of the UN resolution.

The answer was based on intelligence now known to be - at best - faulty.

Based on that assurance, Goldsmith changed his mind. He removed the equivocations and delivered a two-page document to the Cabinet saying unequivocally that military action was legal.

The countdown to war had begun. The war machine was wound up and ready to go.

Two days after Goldsmith delivered his report, missiles exploded in Baghdad.

Six reasons the war could be illegal

British Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith's advice on March 7, 2003. He:

* said in law it was for the United Nations to decide whether Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions, not Prime Minister Tony Blair;

* had doubts that war could be supported under the terms of resolution 1441;

* cautioned that a second resolution might be needed;

* warned that they could not rely on the earlier UN resolution 678 passed to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait;

* pointed out that Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector, was still searching for weapons of mass destruction;

* said the United States might be satisfied it was legal, but that did not apply to the United Kingdom.

- INDEPENDENT, additional reporting REUTERS