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Solicitor-General

Answer

Mr. Marshall-Andrews: To ask the Solicitor-General pursuant to her answer to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) of 17 March 2003, Official Report, column 515W, on Iraq, to what extent, in concluding that it was plain that Iraq had failed to comply with Resolution 1441, the Attorney-General relied upon facts and assertions contained in the Government dossier published in January as material to his conclusion and to the opinion he gave as to the authority to use force and specifying which such facts and assertions were so relied upon. [131002] The Solicitor-General: The Attorney-General did not rely at all on the Government dossier published on 30 January in reaching the conclusion that Iraq had failed to comply with resolution 1441 and in stating his view that a legal basis for the use of force existed in the combined effect of UN Security Council resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. However, it was material to that conclusion that there was intelligence evidence that the Iraqi authorities had intimidated scientists which UNMOVIC wished to interview; that rooms designated for such interviews had been bugged; and that some potential interviewees had been kept away from UNMOVIC by the Iraqi authorities and that there was evidence that Iraqi scientists had been intimidated into refusing interviews with UNMOVIC outside Iraq. These points were also covered in the section on interviews in chapter one of the dossier.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

131002; 411 c352W;411 c356W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Armed conflict Iraq International law Weapons UN resolutions Iraq conflict

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk