Is this the legal basis for a war crime trial?
The statement below is from the attorney general's summary of his advice on the legality or illegality of the Iraq adventure, given on March 7.
27. In these circumstances, 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. I have already advised that I do not believe that such a
resolution need be explicit in its terms. The key point is that it should
establish that the Council has concluded that Iraq has failed to take the
final opportunity offered by resolution 1441, as in the draft which has
already been tabled.
28. Nevertheless, having regard to the information on the negotiating
history which I have been given and to the arguments of the US
Administration which I heard in Washington, I accept that a reasonable
case can be made that resolution 1441 is capable in principle of reviving
the authorisation in 678 without a further resolution.
29. However, the argument that resolution 1441 alone has revived the
authorisation to use force in resolution 678 will only be sustainable if
there are strong factual grounds for concluding that Iraq has failed to take
the final opportunity. In other words, we would need to be able to
demonstrate hard evidence of non-compliance and non-cooperation.
Given the structure of the resolution as a whole, the views of UNMOVIC
and the IAEA will be highly significant in this respect. In the light of the
latest reporting by UNMOVIC, you will need to consider extremely
carefully whether the evidence of non-cooperation and non-compliance by
Iraq is sufficiently compelling to justify the conclusion that Iraq has failed
to take its final opportunity. My italics.
10 days later on March 17 the Government issued an unequivocal statement that the war was legal, backed by the attorney general.
Unfortunately for the attorney and the Government, this coincided with a report from the UNMOVIC that real progress was being made on weapons inspection. As Hans Blix said, there were real missiles being destroyed at the time in Iraq. The claims made by Powell about WMD sites had not been substantiated.
The hard evidence of material breech which Goldsmith required from Blair was not there.
It is almost certain that Blair told Goldsmith that there was hard evidence just as he told Parliament, the cabinet and the public.
The 45 minutes lie comes speedily to mind.
This man has to go. He misled his party, parliament, and the people of our country in the most serious manner possible short of starting a nuclear war.
The news has it that he is walking with a limp today.
It must surely be the Iraq ball and chain.
It should be a real ball and chain.
We may be going to sedgefield to take the campaign onto his home territory tomorrow.
If he survives the election, I think the opposition to impeachment may have melted away.
