Downing Street Publishes Memo on Legality of War

Prime Minister Tony Blair's campaign plane was struck by lightning as it came into Heathrow on Wednesday. It seems Mother Nature doesn't approve of New Labour anymore. Who can blame the old girl? Now, that the Attorney General's legal advice to the government on going to war with Iraq has finally been published, it's clear Mr. Blair manipulated the situation and withheld facts from Parliament. As much as one may admire his political acumen and his achievements, it is obvious that he has succumbed to the corruption of power.

The full memo of March 7, 2003 says that there are three "possible bases for the use of force" against Iraq. Self-defense would require an imminent threat that Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, said didn't exist (but the false claim that Iraq could launch WMD 45 minutes after the order was given looks tailor-made to meet this requirement. The second basis for the use of force was "to avert overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe," which there was not according to His Lordship. Finally, the use of force would be OK under Security Council authorization under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The AG wrote, "The key question is whether resolution 1441 has the effect of providing such authorisation."

This is an issue over which honest legal minds may differ, and Lord Goldsmith wrote, "I remain of the opinion that the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of force." He accepted that, if there were evidence of WMD in Iraq, that the existing UN resolutions would suffice. Absent that evidence, he was less certain. He also wrote, "Regime change cannot be the objective of military action."

But the March 7 memo was never presented to Parliament. Instead, a nine-paragraph, written answer to a parliamentary question on March 17 was all that the democratically elected representatives of the British people had to consider before the March 20 beginning of the war. And in that, there was no ambiguity offered, nor any of His Lordship's elegant logic.

A lie is often defined as the deliberate telling of an untruth. Here, Mr. Blair employed a slicker technique, which nonetheless, has the same effect as a lie -- he withheld critical information from decision-makers to get the result he wanted. Would the MPs have backed him if they had known the AG's full discussion of the issues? Maybe. But then again, maybe not. And that is the problem. When the legislature is denied full knowledge of the facts, no reasoned debate can occur. Democracy is thereby subverted. "Creation of an Iraqi democracy required the diminution of British democracy," won't wash. Mr. Blair's re-election will only make the British voter complicit in the act, and the country deserves better than that.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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