Iraq war dissent could return to haunt Labour

The war in Iraq is moving up the election agenda following revelations which throw fresh doubt on the legality of the conflict.

A report in the Mail on Sunday details a leaked copy of the full 13-page legal advice from attorney general Lord Goldsmith.

The advice warned that the war was "likely to be challenged" under international law.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats seized on the reports, highlighting the wider issue of "trust" in the prime minister.

Referring to Iraq as "the most corrosive issue in the body politic in Britain", Charles Kennedy called for the full advice to be published.

"This demonstrates yet again why the government must publish the attorney general's legal advice in full," he said.

"Tony Blair himself has said that, despite all the various inquiries that have taken place inside and outside parliament, ultimately the arbiter of these matters will be the judgment of the British people at the ballot box.

"The longer he remains unwilling to publish in full the attorney general's advice, the more people are going to view this election as an issue of trust and as a referendum on the trust which they felt was so badly lacking over the decision to go to war."

Meanwhile Michael Howard also sought to flag up the issue of trust, saying that the election represented a final chance for voters to hold Blair to account for his "lies".

Speaking on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, Howard said: "Character is an issue in this election. On the one thing on which he has taken a stand in the eight years he has been prime minister, which is taking us to war, he didn't even tell the truth on that.

"This is the last chance the British people will have to send a message to Mr Blair, to say to him we are fed up with your broken promises, we are fed up with the way you lied to win elections, as over tax and we are fed up with the way you lied to us over the war."

But Kennedy hit back at the Tories, dismissing their attempts to exploit the issue as "laughable", saying the party had been the "principal cheerleaders" for the Iraq war.

Legal concerns

The Mail on Sunday report detailed six key areas in which the government's legal advisor was concerned about the conflict under international law.

These included the worries that it should be the UN's role, not the US or the UK's, to rule whether Iraq had defied the UN or not.

It also said that security council resolution 1441 - under which the war was launched - warned only of "serious consequences" for breach, not "all necessary means" which was the wording used to justify military action in Kuwait.

The leaked document said resolution 678, which authorised the first Gulf War, could not be revived and the Americans' legal stance could not help Britain because the US Congress had specifically ruled the conflict legal only under US law.

Other concerns were that weapons inspector Hans Blix had said Saddam was being "more helpful" in his reports, and the attorney general concluded the case for war would be much "safer" with a second UN resolution.

Labour response

A spokeswoman for Lord Goldsmith said the attorney general has told the Cabinet that war in Iraq would be lawful.

"It was his own genuinely held independent view," she said.

"Legal advice is confidential, protected by legal professional privilege and we don't comment on the process of giving legal advice.

"The parliamentary statement of March 17 2003 never purported to be a summary of the attorney general's advice."

And Baroness Amos, the Labour leader in the House of Lords, hit back over the reports, saying it was clear from the Attorney General's published advice that the war in Iraq was legal.

"He came to the House of Lords and himself said, when there were questions about whether or not this was his independent legal advice, that it was independent, it was his legal advice and that the war was legal," she told Sky News's Sunday with Adam Boulton programme.

"To continue to undermine the integrity of the attorney general in this way is, I think, appalling.

"Our view was that the war was legal then, it remains legal now. There is no issue about that for this government."