Britain Sunday Times: No 10 Refuses to Reveal Iraq War E-Mails

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1734151,00.html

August 14, 2005

No 10 refuses to reveal Iraq war e-mails

DAVID CRACKNELL, POLITICAL EDITOR

DOWNING STREET is refusing to release e-mails from a senior official relating to the attorney-general’s legal advice in the run-up to the Iraq war, raising suspicions that No 10 intervened at a crucial time.

It has admitted that an aide reporting to Tony Blair sent confidential e-mails relating to the advice just days before Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, issued a summary version of his legal advice which stated unequivocally that the war was legal.

His original advice, issued 10 days earlier on March 7, 2003 warned that a decision to go to war could be challenged in the international courts.

<>A senior source at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which Falconer heads, said colleagues had been been “s***ing” themselves that the Morgan e-mails would be released after No 10 went against precedent and released Goldsmith’s full legal advice during the election.

No 10 has twice stalled since the first request by The Sunday Times three months ago. The Sunday Times is now appealing to the information commissioner.

[Burried News]

1. There was a woman attorney on Goldsmith's staff who was an

expert on international law. She categorically stated the war in Iraq was illegal. She resigned in protest after Goldsmith changed his mind and went along with Blair. The Butler Report never revealed it - it was a fraud. The BBC reporter who said they fixed the intel was driven out as were the number 1 and 2 executives of the BBC. May the bulldogs never let go of the poodle.

[Burried News]

2. Elizabeth Wilmshurst - British Foreign Office advisor.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0324-02.htm
"Foreign Office Official's Resignation Letter Reveals that Attorney General Did Change His Mind on Legality of Iraq War"
by Colin Brown

Excerpt:
Documentary evidence has emerged showing that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, changed his mind about the legality of the Iraq war just before the conflict began. The damning revelation is contained in the resignation letter of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a legal adviser at the Foreign Office, in which she said the war would be a "crime of aggression". She quit the day after Lord Goldsmith's ruling was made public, three days before the war began in March 2003.

The critical paragraph of her letter, published yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act, was blanked out by the Government on the grounds that it was in the public interest to protect the privacy of the advice given by the Attorney General. But last night the contents of the paragraph were leaked, and Tony Blair was facing fresh allegations of a cover-up. There has long been speculation that Lord Goldsmith was leant on to switch his view, and to sanction the war - and confirmation of that would be devastating for the Prime Minister. The Wilmhurst letter stops short of explaining what caused Lord Goldsmith to change his mind.

The revelations come two weeks after it emerged that there had never been a detailed dossier from the Attorney General setting out the case for military action before troops were committed, and that Britain went to war on the basis of nine paragraphs on a single sheet of A4 paper.

Last night's revelations - broadcast on Channel 4 News - showed that Ms Wilmshurst said the Attorney General had initially agreed with the Foreign Office legal team that a war on Iraq would be illegal without a second UN resolution. END

[flpoljunkie]

3. Kick!