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Lord Goldsmith: Bush administration ‘persuaded me to sanction war’
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor27 Jan 2010
Tony Blair's attorney general gave the “green light” for war in Iraq after meeting George Bush's lawyers, he said this afternoon.
Lord Goldsmith performed a secret U-turn on the legality of the invasion two days after a trip to Washington, the Iraq inquiry was told.
The peer confirmed he had been persuaded to drop his view that an explicit UN mandate was needed for military action. Until then, Lord Goldsmith had warned Downing Street he could not authorise the toppling of Saddam Hussein without a new UN vote.
Laying bare for the first time the pressures he was under, he revealed that his advice was seen by No 10 as not “terribly welcome” and he was sidelined from the UN process.
It was in February 2003, less than four weeks before US and British troops deployed in Iraq, that he finally changed his mind.
Lord Goldsmith said “the most powerful factor” in his U-turn was the strong advice from the Americans that they would never let the French or Russians veto military action.
He revealed that as late as January 2003, he had written to Mr Blair to warn again of the lack of legal cover. But although Mr Blair coolly told him “your advice is your advice”, the memo set alarm bells ringing across Whitehall and both UN ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock and foreign secretary Jack Straw directly challenged his interpretation of the law.
Sir Jeremy urged the attorney general to meet George Bush's most senior lawyers, the team who had drafted UN resolution 1441 that gave Saddam one last chance to disarm. He flew to Washington on 10 February and held talks with President Bush's White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and William Taft, the state department's top lawyer. Mr Bush's key foreign policy aide
Condoleezza Rice was also present, as were her legal adviser John Bellinger and Pentagon officials.
Lord Goldsmith admitted that on his return he had realised he needed to shift his stance. When asked what brought about his sudden decision to drop his objections, he replied: “It was a combination of Jeremy Greenstock, Jack Straw and what happened in Washington.”
He stressed it was only by talking to the Americans directly that he appreciated the legal situation. “Sir Jeremy on his own had some good points. He moved me in my mind, but he didn't quite get me there.”
In an extraordinary admission, Lord Goldsmith conceded that in the end he boiled down the complex arguments about the need for a second UN resolution to which political objective was best. “I used a test I had in private practice: which side of the argument do you want to be on?' I took the view that I would prefer to be on the side of the argument that a second resolution wasn't necessary,” he told the inquiry.
Lord Goldsmith criticised Mr Straw for the way he dismissed the advice of his Foreign Office lawyers and complained that he would have preferred to have been brought into the policy on war in Iraq earlier. But he said that in the end he had to come down on one side of the law or the other. On his return from Washington, he instructed his office to revise his legal advice. “I had given them a green light that it was lawful to take military action,” he said.
He informed Mr Blair's aides of the decision a fortnight later and drafted his first formal paper on 7 March. It was only on 13 March, after being told by the chief of defence staff that he really needed legal cover for war, that he finally gave the official go-ahead.
The tensions between Mr Blair and his attorney general over the Iraq war were laid bare today.
Earlier, Lord Goldsmith revealed how he firmly warned Downing Street in 2002 that war could be illegal. “I don't think, frankly, it was terribly welcome,” he told the inquiry.
When asked why the prime minister responded so tartly, he replied: “You will have to ask Mr Blair.”
Lord Goldsmith told the inquiry he had told Mr Blair eight months before the war that specific UN backing was needed to topple Saddam. The former law chief firmly warned Downing Street of his stance and rang to complain about “Chinese whispers” that he was beginning to back a US-led invasion.
He said that his “provisional” position against war was made clear repeatedly throughout 2002. Although he warned Downing Street that he wanted his views registered, “sometimes afterwards you wondered if that's the way everyone was acting”.
Lord Goldsmith also revealed for the first time that he had been briefed by intelligence chief John Scarlett in September 2002 that Iraq did not represent an imminent threat to the West. “The position in relation to chemical and biological weapons was that they existed, but that they would not be used first. They would be used in retaliation to an attack,” he said.
Six days that changed law chief's mind
7 March, 2003
After meeting US lawyers in Washington the previous month, Lord Goldsmith says there is a “reasonable case” that war could be legal. But he stresses this case could fail in court and the “safest” option would be to get a new United Nations resolution.
11 March, 2003
Tony Blair calls Lord Goldsmith to a Downing Street meeting. Present are chief of the defence staff Admiral Boyce, Alastair Campbell, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, Cabinet Secretary Andrew Turnbull and Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell.
With troops massing for an imminent invasion, the pressure on Lord Goldsmith is huge. Lord Boyce says he needs clear legal authority in his war directive to the Army, RAF and Navy. Mr Turnbull raises the issue that all his civil servants also need legal protection.
It is clear Lord Goldsmith is being asked finally to say “Yes” or “No” to war. He advises again that a “reasonable case” could be made, but says “a second resolution would be preferable”.
13 March, 2003
1pm: Lord Goldsmith meets Foreign Office lawyer Cathy Adams and his legal secretary David Brummell to “take stock of the position”.
Mr Brummell's note shows Lord Goldsmith has “after further reflection...come to the clear view” that war could be legal. “He had come to this view earlier in the week,” the note reveals.
4pm: Lord Goldsmith meets Christopher Greenwood QC, one of the few international lawyers who believe invasion would be legal.
5pm: He meets Tory peer Lord Mayhew, former attorney general to prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
6pm: Lord Goldsmith meets Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and tells him he has made up his mind. Mr Straw says he is “duly grateful”. Lord Goldsmith says he might need to tell the Cabinet on 17 March that “the legal issues were finely balanced”. Mr Straw warns that colleagues may leak such nuances and says it is better to set out his clear backing for war in a letter and circulate it to ministers. Lord Goldsmith agrees.
Reader views (20)
Bingham has it right - basically Goldsmith choked under pressure from the US and Blair's own chimps. As the guardian of sovereign British legal judgement he should be thoroughly ashamed and hand his job to someone with the required independence of mind and cojones.
- David, London, 28/01/2010 11:16
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Many people must be mystified as to why Goldsmith has to go to US lawyers to shape his opinion, when the UK government is equipped with very competent lawyers who were adamant that under International Law, the invasion of Iraq was illegal. Furthermore, not only is it very difficult to elicit classified papers from the UK government, it must be next to impossible for the Chilcot inquiry to winkle relevant papers from the US government and Goldsmith must know this. And as for Goldsmith's "regret" that the UK government will not declassify relevant papers, do not believe a word he says.
- Bingham Macnamara, lymington, hampshire, 28/01/2010 09:24
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It really is like "in the thick of itt" satire.
Why do we have these idiots running the country?
- Mrkp, london, UK, 28/01/2010 07:55
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What has happened to you people in Britain? You agonize over helping to depose a murderous dictator, appease Islamic barbarians, and reject newspaper ads seeking reliable workers because the ad discriminates against unreliable workers! What a nation of spineless weenies you have become.
- Drew, Pine Bluff, AR (USA), 27/01/2010 21:09
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So the Americans persuaded Goldsmith that a war would be legal. Does that mean he thinks American lawyers are better than ours? Tell that to the Bar Council.
- Alex, London, 27/01/2010 19:52
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Neither Bliar or Jack Straw accepted Lord Goldsmith's legal view initially and it was not until he was influenced by the US and brought in at the later stages of preparation for war that he changed his mind. He did state that a reasonable case was not sufficient for war , and this is all they had ! Regime change is not a valid case for war under UN resoltions and under International Law the validity and legality for war should be beyond reasonable doubt !
THE WAR IN IRAQ WAS THEREFORE ILLEGAL.
- C H K, london, 27/01/2010 17:38
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Watched it, got persuaded. Hate to agree with Val Daniels, but I do. So what about UN wallies, EU unionists, ECHR idealists? - we should just renounce all that, the day after an election. If you-all want to know what HMG (Southern) thinks, just ask - anytime.
- Steve, London, England, 27/01/2010 17:35
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Why do we have an attorney general.He was paid by the British taxpayer to make his own decision,not the American public.It seems our taxes have been paid to the wrong goverment.
- Dave, london, 27/01/2010 17:30
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Lord Goldsmith has no credibility. By introducing a 70 year ruling on the details of Dr Kelley's death, Blair has destroyed all trustworthiness for anyone connected with this inquiry.
- Norman, Eastcote, 27/01/2010 17:25
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On the basis of his own admission it appears he was constructively bullied into 'groupthink'; effectively falling into line so as not to feel an outcast. To say that he felt he had to decide on which side of the fence to fall indicates he was forced to bury his awareness of reasonable doubts to appease his peers. The wind was clearly blowing so hard in one direction that there was only ever one side of the fence he would fall on. He appears to be guilty of discounting the materiality of a reasonable doubt that should have prevented thousands of lives being lost. Blair, Straw, et. al., by all accounts, are guilty of the greater crime; of being part of an orchestrated effort to pressure him into doing this. In my view they are all war criminals but I place Blair & Bush as the worst as they formed the dark heart of a cancerous, self-serving cabal that, through groupthink, tainted the rest of them and got us to where we are today.
- Back Garden, London UK, 27/01/2010 17:23
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I don`t have the slightest hope that Blair will be subjected to any intensive interrogation by the Chilcott enquiry panel.
Teflon Tony will quiver his lips and proclaim, " I`m a straight forward sort of guy." He will then walk off into the sunset and his very, very, lucrative post Government sidelines.
By the way. Only Americans would pay $10,000 a head to listen to to this charlatan lecture on morality and probity in office.
- Charles, Stanmore. London, 27/01/2010 17:08
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This guy has received schooling for today at the expense of the tax payer. He comes well prepared; but I am more inclined to believe others in his office that the war was illegal. Not becasue I want to believe that but becasue he has not persuaded me otherwise at the moment that this was no more than a govt stitch up. Best one liner that has just come out was that he was more interested in his legal opinion. If the consequences of his opinion was that it resulted in Tony losing his job as PM and Nulabour getting booted out of govt, so be it. Believe that one if you like.
- Brian G, Norfolk Gorleston, 27/01/2010 15:48
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At around 3pm GMT today Lord Goldsmith made it crystal clear. He thought there was a "reasonable case". The PM and Chiefs of Defence Staff weren't prepared to put themselves on the line on that basis and insisted that Lord Goldsmith say "yes" or "no". He said "yes" but had already made it clear that this meant only that there was a reasonable case. In other words it seems to me that the PM knew the position but wanted someone else to blame. Simple. Blair now needs to find out, in a trial at the Hague, whether the "reasonable case" was in fact enough. There is no other way of making a clear precedent for the future.
- Basic, Marbella, Spain, 27/01/2010 15:18
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This is all well and good, but without any product at the end of it. When , Tony Blair will probably pick up a few more jobs - I'm amazed that Teflon has not come calling.
- Paul, London, 27/01/2010 14:51
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Not good enough, oh lord, Goldsmith.
Bush and his coterie wanted war, Tony obliged with pledging Britain's commitment). (Easily done when few in the Labour govt. had serving forces members in the family).
Dissenting voices and objections were silenced among those in high office. That is, Britain's custodians. All remained silent rather than resign. No consultations about this very grave step with other European nations. A very few at the top were determined to go to war. So determined about war as an act, there was no thought about how to manage Iraq after the invasion or put into place functioning national security forces.
How and why we entered the war is among one of the most shameful episodes in Britain's history.
- Catherine, Ipswich, 27/01/2010 14:27
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It is obvious from the above comments that minds are already made up regardless of what the Chilcot findings are. I was struck by the confidenr way in which Lord Goldsmith gave his evidence this morning; he did not appear to me to be a man under any kind of pressure. For the information of those who have already posted, Christopher Greenwood QC, is now a judge at the International Court. Are we to assume you think that he, too, is in the pocket of the US government. You should all learn to see it how it is and not how you would like it to be. Just because some witnesses to the enquiry don't agree with your views, it doesn't make them liars.
- Val Daniels, Mijas Costa, Spain, 27/01/2010 14:03
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Goldsmith changes mind to give legal cover to the US and Bliar - he now earns over a million working for? A friendly US law firm.
Bliar agrees to war in 2002 to help the US - he now earns millions working for? A friendly US bank.
Simple greed is not confined to the bankers, it stretches its ugly fingers all the way into the machine of government, killing millions of the innocent but giving riches to the few. Welcome to the 19th century, have a nice day!
- Bobby Smith, London, 27/01/2010 10:13
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The man who sold his sole for Tony Blairs ego trip. Another prospective candiadte for The Hague !!
- Nick Holland, glasgow, 27/01/2010 10:11
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the only thing honest &truthful to come out of these enquires
is the cost to the taxpaper
- Basil, bussiere poitevine 87320 france, 27/01/2010 10:09
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NO HE WON'T face a grilling, he'll merely be asked nicely by some nice men to answer some nice questions in any way he sees fit and if he wants to give a true answer fine, if he doesn't fine.
GET REAL FOLKS
- Steve, Brentford, 27/01/2010 10:03
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