Legal advice to Blair: invasion against the law

Tony Blair's most senior legal adviser was today to be forced to explain why he ignored advice from more experienced colleagues that the invasion of Iraq had no basis in law.

In its most explosive day of evidence to date, the Iraq inquiry heard that both Lord Peter Goldsmith, the Attorney-General who gave his legal backing to the invasion, and Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary at the time, brushed aside the unwelcome verdicts of leading international lawyers within the Foreign Office.

Sir Michael Wood, the department's chief legal adviser, revealed yesterday that he believed the March 2003 invasion was "contrary to international law". He said he considered resigning in the days before troops moved into Iraq after his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, left in protest.

Declassified documents showed that he repeatedly warned Straw that he believed military action to be unlawful.

Wood said that it was the "first and only occasion" in his 30 years at the Foreign Office that his legal advice had not been accepted.

His evidence blew apart repeated assertions by Blair's ministers and advisers at the time of Wilmshurst's resignation that her views were not shared by Wood or the other lawyers.

"I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law," Wood told the inquiry. "In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorised by the [United Nations] Security Council, and had no other basis in international law."

Wilmshurst, who was given a standing ovation after her evidence yesterday, said lawyers within the Foreign Office were "entirely of one view" that the invasion would need to be authorised by the UN to be lawful, while the prospect of committing troops without the UN's explicit approval was treated as a "nightmare scenario".

She said Blair's team had treated legal clearance for launching the invasion as "simply an impediment that had to be got over before the policy could be implemented".

Straw's role in dismissing legal concerns about the use of force will also come under the spotlight when he returns to the inquiry next month, after it emerged that he overruled advice from both Wood and Goldsmith.

Wood wrote several notes to Straw to clarify that he believed military action against Saddam Hussein to be unlawful without UN clearance.

In one, Wood said: "To advocate the use of force without a proper legal basis is to advocate the commission of the crime of aggression, one of the most serious offences under international law." In a letter to Straw two months before the war, Wood warned him: "I hope that there's no doubt in anyone's mind that without a further decision of the council ... the United Kingdom cannot lawfully use force against Iraq."

He told the inquiry that he had written the note because Straw's views were "so completely wrong from a legal point of view". He added that lawyers within the Foreign Office believed it was "pretty straightforward" that there was no legal basis for an invasion. However, Straw fired a memo back, saying he did not accept Wood's legal judgment, adding that international law was an "uncertain field".

An early draft of Goldsmith's legal advice on the Iraq invasion issued in January 2003, which suggested that only the UN could authorise the use of force against Saddam, provoked a similarly scathing response from Straw. He told the Attorney General that his judgment ignored "both the negotiating history and the wording" of previous UN resolutions. His missives emerged just a week after he told the inquiry that he had warned Blair about the legal problems of an invasion.

Secret documents, published for the first time yesterday, also revealed that Goldsmith told No 10 that he had continuing doubts over the war's legality without explicit permission from the UN. Resolution 1441, agreed in November 2002 and designed to put further pressure on Iraq, was used by Blair and the Bush Administration as the legal basis for the invasion. But declassified documents showed that Goldsmith told Blair's team he was "pessimistic" that resolution 1441 could legally justify Saddam's removal.

Lord Goldsmith made the comments in a telephone call with Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff. He said that he had heard "Chinese whispers" that No 10 was planning to use a breach of the resolution as the legal basis for military action. During the call, Powell admitted that Blair was "under no illusion as to the attorney's views on the issue". However, just days before the invasion took place, Goldsmith concluded that resolution 1441 did give legal cover for the invasion after being asked by Blair to make a final ruling.

Wilmshurst said it was "extraordinary" that Goldsmith's final advice had been sought so late on, when troops had already gathered around Iraq in preparation for the invasion. "The process followed was lamentable," she said, adding that blocking military action at the last minute would have given Saddam a "massive PR advantage".

"We were talking about the massive invasion of another country, the change in the government and the occupation of the country, and in those circumstances it did seem to me that we should follow the safest route," she said. "It was clear that the Attorney General was not going to stand in the way of the Government."

- INDEPENDENT