Blair’s legal case for war was sexed up too

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Foreign Office legal team were united in their view that a second resolution was not just preferable but essential. At the outset Goldsmith indicated to them that he shared their view. Blair, like the Bush administration, believed the legalities were an unwelcome distraction. Goldsmith’s problems began when it became clear that the diplomatic efforts of the UK had failed and that a second resolution would not be secured.
...
On his return he began to put together the legal advice. His 13- page paper set out in detail the status of the various UN resolutions. He did not give a definitive view but suggested the government’s case would have been “safer” if based on a further reference to the UN. In his conclusion he set out the potential for legal challenges to the government. In a break with precedent, that advice to Blair on March 7 was not circulated to the cabinet or to the permanent secretaries of key government departments.
...
The following day Blair gave him such an assurance. The prime minister feared, however, this formulation might not be enough. Goldsmith’s advice might not convince wavering Labour MPs. So he asked him to produce something more compelling. The final version was published on March 17, on the eve of the crucial Commons debate, as a written parliamentary answer described as “the attorney-general’s view of the legal basis for the use of force against Iraq”.

This was not the same as his formal legal advice. This was not, as some ministers claimed, a “summary” of the legal advice. This was a partial, tendentious account of that advice, shorn of the caveats and qualifications that Goldsmith had included 10 days earlier. A qualified document had become a document of advocacy. Sexing up had become a habit.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-1501-1367722-1501,00.html

[Briar]

1. More slippery than a greased pig

that's Bliar:

"So sensitive is the affair that Goldsmith was reluctant to speak about it during his two appearances before Lord Butler’s inquiry. His testimony was regarded as evasive and unconvincing.

"Butler and his eminent colleagues took a dim view of the way that Blair and his coterie conducted themselves. “We are concerned that the informality and circumscribed character of the government’s procedures which we saw in the context of policy making towards Iraq risks reducing the scope for informed collective political judgment,” they said.

"The evidence was potentially devastating, but the former cabinet secretary took the view that it was his job to set out the facts and that it was parliament’s to hold the executive to account. Blair, I am told, expressed immense relief that Butler had chosen not to merge the two. Butler provided Blair with a technical escape route which he exploited with customary skill."