Blair's 'big lie' finally out, but he fights on

LONDON: A defiant and barely defeated Downing Street has finally and controversially published the full text of the legal advice given to prime minister Tony Blair on whether or not it was legal for Britain to join the Americans in invading Iraq. Just seven days before Britain votes in an election expected to return a battered but resilient Blair to power, the prime minister faced the ignominy of being privately thought a liar by his people, press, political colleagues and opponents alike.


On Thursday, screaming media leaks told the British electorate that their prime minister had been advised and deceitfully kept silent about the view of the government’s most senior law officer. The legal officer in question, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, had warned Blair in a confidential minute before the war that British participation in George W Bush’s Iraq invasion could be declared illegal.

Offering a cautious legal view, which Blair till now repeatedly refused to publish for the nation’s assessment, the attorney-general warned that it could leave Britain facing the prospect of losing a case in an international court. Goldsmith added that while he expected to be able to argue "a reasonable case"in favour of Blair’s proposed military action, he was not confident a court would agree.

Goldsmith admitted that past UN resolutions sanctioning war on Iraq might be a reasonable basis for legal argument, but he added a caveat, namely that there had to be ‘strong factual grounds’ Iraq was still in breach of internationally-imposed disarmament obligations.