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Iraq

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Fowler for introducing this remarkably timely debate. The legal aspects have been mentioned by many speakers already and that is what I want to concentrate on, not only to look back on the past and find out what did happen, but also to consider its effect on the future. It is clear that the suspicions about the apparent mishandling of the legal advice has left long-term damage to the perception of the office of the law officers and the Attorney-General. That needs to be looked at very carefully and we cannot do that unless we get to the bottom of what really happened. What was the continuing role of the then Attorney-General? It ought to have been that he and his department were closely involved in the months and indeed years running up to the invasion. When one got close to it, what was he actually told by the then Prime Minister? We know from the inquiry of the noble Lord, Lord Butler—he is here and will possibly tell us a little more—that his inquiry found it necessary to say that the then Prime Minister had been disingenuous in relation to the handling of the intelligence. That became very important because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, has adverted to, there were enormously deep issues on the legality. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who sadly cannot be in his place, first of all boldly and correctly advised that regime change was not a justification for the war—in America it is widely believed to be a justification—but we have not seen the full advice on that. Also, Tony Blair as Prime Minister quite rightly persuaded President Bush that it was necessary to try and get a further resolution from the United Nations. The position here was entirely different from the situation in the Falklands and that in the first Iraq war. In the Falklands we had a right to defend ourselves under Article 51 of the United Nations charter—I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Michael Havers at that time—and that was always the keystone of our position. That also applied in relation to the first Iraq war and the position of Kuwait, but of course it was then reinforced by an actual United Nations resolution. When that could not be obtained, it seemed that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, sought to fall back on some form of Article 51 justification on the basis that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was able with the aid of some improved Scud missile or in some such way to drop a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon that could cause mass destruction, either over the Israelis or on to our bases in Cyprus. It was never very clear exactly what it was, and we do not really know what the then Attorney-General was told. We do not know exactly what advice he gave, and we do not know exactly what was told to the Cabinet, though it seems to have been extremely little. We ought to know those things. Sometimes an obfuscation is raised: it is sometimes said the tradition is that the law officers’ advice is not revealed. That has nothing whatever to do with this case. It is always open to the Government, who are the client, to waive the privilege. Although the law officers, for practical reasons, are the gatekeepers, the privilege is that of the client, and the client is the Government. The Government should make it perfectly clear that they waive their privilege. This inquiry must get legal assistance if it needs it, and it probably does need it. It must look into this carefully and give us a full report. Nothing else can satisfy us.