Iraq, the secret US visit, and an angry military chief

[cal04]

The legality of the Iraq war exploded on to the agenda last week, causing chaos to Labour strategy. Here we reveal the key US officials who persuaded Britain that invasion was legal - and the astonishing reaction from our military chiefs

Blair may have thought that he could take Labour through the campaign without tripping over Iraq. He was wrong. Iraq came back to bite the Prime Minister last week. Viciously. Conservative billboards branded him a liar in letters a foot high. Headlines took up the theme. The Prime Minister was accused of 'stomach-turning' behaviour by a defecting backbencher.

The process by which Blair took a nation to war, the Achilles' heel of his eight-year premiership, has stumbled blinking into the spotlight, with the unprecedented leaking of the 13 pages of densely argued, highly classified legal advice that his government has fought to keep secret for two years. It is both far better and far worse than it looks. The document fails to prove the Opposition's central charge, that Blair lied about the legality of the invasion: its emergence at the height of an already vitriolic campaign raises serious questions about precisely who is trying to destroy him.

On the other hand, it enables for the first time the tangled threads of argument that led London and Washington to a still fiercely disputed war to be unravelled in public. In a series of interviews with key players on both sides of the Atlantic, The Observer can for the first time reveal the remarkable Washington summit attended by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, with leading legal officers in the Bush administration. Goldsmith came back more 'persuaded' that the case for war was 'reasonable'. The anger and fear over lack of legal cover can also be shown, with some of Britain's most senior military staff still concerned, more than two years later, that an appearance before the International Criminal Court is possible.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1474190,00.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Good read! eom