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"We
would never act unlawfully," said Blair
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LONDON,
May 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - British Prime Minister
Tony Blair denied on Thursday, May 22, press reports based on a leaked
memo from the British attorney general that the role of the U.S.-Anglo
forces in post-war Iraq was illegal.
Attorney
General Lord Peter Goldsmith had indicated in the memo leaked to the New
Statesman magazine that a further U.N. mandate was necessary to
authorize any activities in post-war Iraq beyond maintaining law and
order.
Asked
about the memo, Blair insisted at his monthly televised press
conference at Downing Street that the government had acted legally
throughout.
"It
is completely wrong to say that at any point of time, the attorney
general has said that the government was acting unlawfully. We would
never act unlawfully in relation to this," he argued.
"In
any event, to be absolutely blunt, all these things have been
overtaken by the U.N. resolution.
"I
think the passage of the U.N. resolution allows the international
community to come back together again, it gives added hope to people
in Iraq, it allows us to put behind us some of the divisions of the
past and get on with the business of reconstructing Iraq for the Iraqi
people," Blair said.
The
Security Council voted 14-0 Thursday to immediately
lift the 13-year-old U.N. sanctions clamped on Iraq in the
wake of its invasion of Kuwait and put its economy under the broad
control of the U.S.-led occupying forces.
Lord
Goldsmith asserted to Blair that everything the U.S.-led Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid has attempted to do, from the
efforts to form an interim Iraqi administration to the control of the
supply and sale of oil and the award of reconstruction contracts to
U.S. firms, may be null and void in the absence of a new U.N.
resolution, the New Statesman magazine reported Thursday.
Six
days into the Iraq war, when the talk was of a long, hard campaign,
Blair turned to his top legal adviser and friend, Lord Goldsmith.
But
the news Goldsmith brought the war cabinet on the morning of 26 March,
however, was not what Blair wanted to hear.
Goldsmith
decided to put his thoughts into a memorandum addressed to Blair and
circulated to a small number of key Whitehall departments.
The
document, which was kept secret but a copy of which was obtained by
the New Statesman weekly magazine.
"I
am writing to confirm the advice I gave at the meeting this morning
concerning the need for U.N. Security Council authorisation for the
coalition or the international community to establish an interim Iraqi
administration to reform and restructure Iraq and its
administration," wrote Goldsmith in his legal
warning which was published in full by the magazine.
Limitations
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A
copy of the Goldsmith’s memo obtained by New Statesman
magazine
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The
top British legal advisor further said the Anglo-U.S. forces in Iraq,
in their capacity as an occupying power, should not have free reign in
the war-torn country but their actions are limited in accordance with
the international law.
Citing
the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907,
Goldsmith listed specifically the "limitations placed on the
authority of an Occupying Power".
These
included attempts at "wide-ranging reforms of governmental and
administrative structures;" "any alteration in the status of
public officials or judges" and "the imposition of major
structural economic reforms."
Goldsmith
also underlined that the "Government has concluded that the
removal of the current Iraqi regime from power is necessary to secure
disarmament, but the longer the occupation of Iraq continues, and the
more the tasks undertaken by an interim administration depart from the
main objective, the more difficult it will be to justify the
lawfulness of the occupation."
In
her resignation
speech on May 12, former International Development
Secretary Clare Short told MPs that the government "could and
should have respected the Attorney General's advice... and worked for
international agreement to a proper U.N.-led process to establish an
interim Iraqi government."
She
lashed out at "control freak" Blair, in what was seen as the
most vociferous and acrimonious resignation speech to MPs in a decade,
warning Blair that he was sacrificing the trust of nation and party
for his place in history.
Iain
Duncan Smith, the Conservative leader, proposed to Blair in the
Commons on 14 May that he should publish the Attorney General's note,
"to show that he has nothing to hide, nor his government."
The
Liberal Democrats repeated the request. Blair refused but told MPs:
"There is no possibility of our acting in a way inconsistent with
international law. That would be wholly wrong. I would not countenance
it and neither would anyone else."
Goldsmith
further said that the U.N. resolution in the wake of invasion of
Kuwait by the then Iraqi regime provided a legal mandate for both the
first Gulf war and this year's war.
He
stressed, however, that any military action against Iraq must;
therefore, be limited to what is necessary to achieve the objectives
of that resolution, "namely Iraqi disarmament."
But
as days go by, the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq have got nowhere
in their search for alleged weapons of mass destruction - which, as
Goldsmith himself acknowledges in the leaked memo, provided the legal
reason for going to war.
U.N.
Role Important
The
magazine further said that Blair was deeply concerned about legalizing
the role played by the U.S.-Anglo forces in pos-war Iraq.
It
added that, for Blair, early and central U.N. involvement was
important to heal the wounds caused by the road to war, both in the
U.K. and in Europe.
The
weekly magazine said that Blair’s shuttle diplomacy over the role of
the U.N. in Iraq was a case in point.
Blair,
shortly after his briefing from Goldsmith, flew to Camp David for
talks with U.S. President George Bush.
They
spent some time there and in Northern Ireland little more than a week
later trying to resolve their differences over a post-war settlement.
The
New Statesman said Blair wanted a central role for the U.N.
partly as a political counterweight for failing to get a second
resolution on the eve of war - and for legal reasons of course.
