Friday at the Chilcot Inquiry could be interesting

Tony Blair is due back at the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday so this BBC report may be of interest (my emphasis):

'Former attorney general Lord Goldsmith told the Iraq Inquiry he was "uncomfortable" about statements made by Tony Blair before the 2003 invasion.

Lord Goldsmith said Mr Blair's public suggestion Britain could attack Iraq without further UN backing was not compatible with his legal advice.

The disagreement emerged in written evidence published by the Iraq Inquiry.

The Chilcot committee is holding an inquiry into the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

Lord Goldsmith advised Mr Blair on 14 January 2003 that UN Security Council resolution 1441 was not enough on its own to justify force against Iraq.

But on 15 January Mr Blair told MPs that while a second UN resolution was "preferable" there were circumstances in which it was "not necessary" - in the event of the use of an "unreasonable veto" by a Security Council member.

He also told the BBC's Newsnight programme on 6 February 2003 that if a country vetoed a further resolution "unreasonably" then "I would consider action outside of that".

In a written question from the inquiry panel, Lord Goldsmith was asked if he felt those words were "compatible with the advice you had given him".

Lord Goldsmith replied simply "no".

He said he could not remember precisely when he became aware of the comments, but told the inquiry: "I was uncomfortable about them and I believe that I discussed my concerns with [then foreign secretary] Jack Straw and my own staff..."

He said: "I understood entirely the need to make public statements which left Saddam Hussein in no doubt about our firmness of purpose.

"It was more likely that he would co-operate if he thought that there was a real likelihood of conflict.

"My concern was that we should not box ourselves in by the public statements that were made, and create a situation which might then have to be unravelled."

In his evidence to the inquiry last year, Lord Goldsmith acknowledged he had changed his mind on whether a second UN resolution was needed ahead of military action in March 2003.

He had thought one was needed but had ultimately concluded, shortly before the war began, that military action was authorised by existing UN agreements dating back to 1991.

He denied that this came as a result of political pressure from No 10 or anyone else.

Lord Goldsmith's statement is among various transcripts from private hearings and written evidence published by the Iraq Inquiry on Monday.'

As I have said many times in the past - 'The chances of Tony Blair answering a question totally truthfully look slim and unless he is under oath and wired to a lie-detector I don't think that I will believe his 'evidence' anyway.'


When the Inquiry have covered the above area of questionning and Tony Blair has slimed his way out of trouble maybe perhaps they could ask Tony Blair the question that I posed on 22 July:

'At the Chilcot Inquiry, Tony Blair said that:

"If I am asked whether I believe we are safer, more secure, that Iraq is better, that our own security is better, with Saddam and his two sons out of office and out of power, I believe indeed we are.

"It was better to deal with this threat, to remove him from office, and I do genuinely believe that the world is safer as a result."

Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, in front of the same inquiry said that there was such a surge of warnings of home-grown terrorist threats after the invasion of Iraq that MI5 asked for – and got – a 100 per cent increase in its budget. Baroness Manningham-Buller, who was director general of MI5 in 2002-07, told the Chilcot panel that MI5 started receiving a "substantially" higher volume of reports that young British Muslims being drawn to al-Qa'ida.

She told the inquiry: "Our involvement in Iraq radicalised, for want of a better word, a whole generation of young people – a few among a generation – who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack on Islam."

She added: "Arguably we gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad so that he was able to move into Iraq in a way that he was not before."

So was the world and/or the UK safer after the invasion, maybe the Chilcot Inquiry should recall Tony Blair and ask him about Eliza Manningham-Buller's evidence.

After being asked about the above, maybe he could be asked about Eliza Manningham-Buller's comments regarding the dossier that "We were asked to put in some low-grade, small intelligence to it and we refused because we didn't think it was reliable" '