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Lord Goldsmith gave the green light to the invasion of Iraq to protect British soldiers from prosecution if the war was deemed to breach international law, he told the Iraq inquiry.

Gosh! that was so caring of him I feel I quite respect and like him now.

Oh wait a minute. That was a lie to make him sound good wasn't it.

Earlier, he had told the inquiry that in 2002 he had told the Government that an invasion would not be legally justified without first obtaining the mandate of a UN Security Council resolution.


I'd have much preferred "look we wanted to, okay?" I'm in favour of some military action, but we seem to take them too late and for all the wrong reasons and they we just have to lie about it.
I really don't understand how that works.
Is it illegal or isn't it.  It seems a yes/no o/1 black/white sort of question doesn't it.
If it is, how can him saying  it isn't change things.

If we can just wheel a Lord out to say OK, then we can go to war with anyone whenever we like for no reason, can't we. Scary.
Lord Goldsmith vehemently denied being pressured by the PM into giving the war the green light. And it turns out he was right since it transpires that Condoleeza Rice was responsible for that. This hardly exonerates him or the government. As for slippery Jack Straw to have the gall to say that regime change was not the aim of the Iraq invasion, well that's news to all of us, probably Tony Blair as well.
Sounds like Jack Straw was under the influence, he has to be tested regularly for excess illegal substances as you can see below.   It been privatised and is run by a Conservative Party apparatchik called Manda, but Jack has never noticed that.
In fact, Tony Blair was going to have the entire Cabinet tested regularly in response to Ann Widdecombe's expose about drug-taking in high places wot was called The Cannibis Tree, but changed his mind when Alan Milburn told him wot he thought about it below.   But nobody told Jack Straw not to go to the testing centre any more, so he still does.

Alan Milburn looks like an enraged hamster wot just been told it not having any more sunflower seeds to eat.
:rofl  @ Midge  :thumbs

Furby, as near as I can understand it the law is what the U.N says it is since there are always grey areas. So Goldsmith's job would be to say "When the U.N. look at this they will definitely decide it was illegal because of this paragraph here and here"

He did say that I gather,  but if the U.S Administration and the U.K one were both prepared to go to the U.N afterwards and claim that it was legal because of some obscure clause they figured they could get away with it.

Goldsmith's claim now that he said it was legal to protect our soldiers doesn't make sense to me unless I'm missing something. Saying it was ok meant we sent the soldiers, but if later the UN did decide it was illegal then technically I think they could arrest our army and lock them up.

Really not sure how that part works, but I think it's the generals who get arrested and tried for war crimes. I seem to recall that the US said they wouldn't agree to that should it ever happen to their soldiers.

I wish we'd carried on the first time around and done it properly. We were in the right the first time we fought Iraq and if we'd removed Saddam and then left pretty quickly then anything that happened after that would be the problem of the Iraqi people.

Even though the ordinary citizens didn't get a say in it they did share some responsibility for their governments actions. It would've been up to them to replace it with something better or not as the case may be.

Doing it much later and for the wrong reasons made it our problem to put it all back together again and we can't. Nothing we do now will please everyone.
Nothing we do now will please everyone.


Dead right. I don't think democracy will ever work properly in Iraq so long as the Shias and Kurds remain part of Iraq. Herein lies the basic problem that Bush and Blair led by that blundering idiot Donald Rumsfeld failed to comprehend. The Kurds want a separate Kurdistan, a possibility that Turkey would view with horror since a great chunk of Turkey includes its own Kurdish population and would be at risk of annexation. Moreover, the Kurds would quite possibly favour a theocratic government, which western countries would consider unacceptable. A separate Shia autonomous region is feasible. Iran would support that since it is already a Shia theocracy and would dearly love to welcome its brothers back into the fold, not to mention get its hands on the southern oilfields. This is therefore out of the question to the West.
Quite frankly, the only way to rule Iraq in its present make-up is by a firm but benevolent dictator. Something like a Saddam mark 2 with most of the nasty bits taken out, rather like what was left after Gulf War 1.
"Nothing we do will please everyone."

Too true!

The universal translator rendering of that statement: "Nothing we do will please anyone but the Petroleum Industry."

I think that pretty much applies to every country, worldwide, astronomical greed being the base of it all.

[and Pani, I do agree with you. But it is impossible to do anything righteous with the situation, so long as there are Big Bucks to made from oil.]
Well, it's Tony Blair's turn now. He says his view on Saddam's risk changed dramatically after the 9/11 attacks.
His statement demonstrates either a complete lack of understanding of who actually perpetrated 9/11, or a cynical disregard for international law. Coloured perhaps by some sort of joint evangelical zeal between the two heads of state to whom God spoke.
The U.S. public were baying for blood after 9/11, anyone's so long as they were far away and Muslim. G.W.Bush was itching to get at Saddam anyway and he had to be guilty of something, right? Besides, God told him to get him.
He should perhaps have sought a regime change in Saudi Arabia, the original source of Al Qaida, but as Asy says, it's really all about oil isn't it? Saudi oil was still flowing freely but Iraqi oil was mired in the oil-for-food programme.
The sad reality appears to be that Saddam, for all his brutality, was actually keeping a lid on terrorism in his own country. Al Qaida certainly wasn't operating there, but it is now.
Blair admits fault for not clarifying the 45 minute claim, but not his fault for making the claim. He insists he meant 'battlefield weapons' despite saying WMD. Didn't he know that his buddy G.W.Bush was also using his claim in the same manner as the British Press?

He says there was no covert deal with Bush to invade Iraq despite everyone knowing it was inevitable once they had met in Camp David from the mood of the two leaders. He says that they agreed that Saddam 'had to be dealt with'. A ticking off maybe? More sanctions? Well no, because he said later that he didn't think more sanctions would work.

This quote is astonishing:
"The decision I took - and frankly would take again - was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction we should stop him."


This possiblilty exists for dozens of other nations, and the degree of probability is much higher in many of them, but to be used as a rationale for invasion is an appalling admission.

And worst of all, he says he would do it again.

I've little more than contempt for the man.
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