UK has been acting illegally according to the UK Attorney General.

Doubt has been cast on the legality of the post-war role of UK and US troops in Iraq by Tony Blair's chief lawyer.
A leaked memo from Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, published in the New Statesman magazine, suggests it would not be legal for the coalition to reshape Iraq without new UN authority.


news.bbc.co.uk...

This story has come in very low on the radar today but it is potentially very damaging for Blair.

The document was leaked in full to the New Statesman magazine.By whom? It can not be said but Clare Short would no doubt be happy to see legal advice that would corroborate her claims made in her resignation speech.

It is not that the UK has broken international law that will be damaging,ironically,but that the Prime Minister has ignored legal advice.

What are the consequences??

Well,Today the US/UK hope to pass a new UN Resolution on post war Iraq.It can not be over-stressed just how much the UK need this Resolution and,despite China,Russia,France,and Germany seemingly willing to let this new draft pass,we may see new haggling as the UK's domestic pressure gives more power to the UN arm.

Medium term,I think it likely that some group(probably the Stop The War Coalition)take legal action against Tony Blair personally even if it is just to embarrass him and test the law.

This is potentially very damaging.





[Edited on 22-5-2003 by John bull 1]

Except of course that GoldSmith has now changed his mind and said that the UK have been acting "within international laws". Well, I think we're stuck with Blair until we vote hom out. The man is a total hypocrite, and yet the majority of the population are convinced that he believes what he says. I guess it just shows how good a politician (/liar) Blair really is.

I hope Blair suffers for this. I really do. But now that France/Germany/Russia have been bullied/bribed into accepting this new resolution I think we'll quickly see "international legitimacy" for the US approach, which can only be a bad thing for the future.

dom you are wrapped up in a fake world.

France Russia...they haven't been bullied, they are the greedy bums that kept Saddam in power.

Look at the research man the RESEARCH.

You believe you are right, which is bad, because that means no amount of truth is going to change your mind.

France had a 60 billion dollar deal with Saddam to be given complete rights to 23% of Iraqi oil.

NOW TELL ME FRANCE WASN'T IN THIS WAR FOR OIL!

TELL ME. I DARE YOU.

FRANCE WAS ALL ABOUT OIL, THEIR OIL, THEY DIDN'T WANT TO LOSE A BARREL, AT THE COST OF 200,000 IRAQI LIVES.

Wake up Dom.

I'll tell you that you've been swallowing your own governments propoganda 100%.

Who do you think will gain the most from Iraqi oil, US construction firms or the Iraqi people? What do you think France had to gain from opposing an invasion which was going to happen anyway? Do you think the French are such idiots that they couldn't see that the US were going to attack Iraq regardless of a second UN resolution? Don't you think they'd have stood a better chance of keeping those contracts if they'd supported the war?

The US gave Saddam his chemical and biological weapons, the US trained Saddam originally, the US turned their back on a civlian uprising in Iraq after the first war, the US are the ones who went to war because of an imminent threat of WMD attacks, when we have found absolutely no ready-to-use WMD threat (and won't).

You are the one that needs to wake up. Smell the xenophobia.

And why is that Dom because the French assisted the Iraqis is making sure no WMD would be found???

Great conspiracy theory Toltec, haven't actually heard that one before. I'll file it under American Xenophobia.