http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=272&fArticleId=2262116snip - A legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to Law Officers' advice, none currently exists," says a paper marked Secret UK Eyes Only, prepared by Cabinet Office experts on March 8. "This makes moving quickly to invade legally very difficult."
The documents will also fuel claims by MPs that Blair was secretly pursuing a policy of regime change in Iraq but could not admit it publicly because it would have been against international law.
The secret papers also show that law officers warned a year before Britain went to war that it was up to the UN Security Council to assess whether Saddam Hussein had breached UN resolutions and that this was not a judgment that could be made by an individual state such as Britain or the US.
But the prime minister was also warned repeatedly that regime change would be illegal under international law and that, a year before the Iraq war, there were no legal grounds for invading Iraq at all.