Mothers of dead soldiers demand public inquiry into 'illegal' Iraq war [View All]

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1941170,00.html

· Parents challenge refusal to investigate invasion
· Attorney general's switch on legality 'crucial to case'

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday November 7, 2006
The Guardian


The mothers of British soldiers killed in Iraq yesterday challenged the government's refusal to hold a public inquiry into what they say was an illegal invasion.
Rose Gentle and Beverley Clarke said they were "proud of their sons, who died with honour serving their country". Fusilier Gordon Gentle and Trooper David Clarke were 19 when they were killed.

But the two women were "grieving parents in whose minds there are real questions about the legality of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003", their counsel, Rabinder Singh QC, told the court of appeal.

Crucial to the case, he said, was how the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, came to the view that the invasion was lawful. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned in protest from her post as deputy chief legal adviser to the Foreign Office, and the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, had called the war unlawful, Mr Singh said.

Lord Alexander, a leading QC, had described the government's legal justification for the invasion as "risible". Lord Steyn, a former law lord, echoed the view that the government had been forced to scrape "the bottom of the legal barrel".