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Straw warned Iraq war would be illegal

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Jan 26, IRNA -- Former foreign secretary Jack Straw was warned by the most senior Foreign Office lawyer just before the 2003 Iraq war that invading Iraq would be illegal.

“I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law,” the Foreign Office’s chief legal adviser, Sir Michael Wood, revealed Tuesday.

Giving damning evidence to the Iraq inquiry, Wood said that Straw disagreed with his warning and accused him of being “dogmatic,” arguing that international law was "pretty vague" and offered a certain amount of leeway.

He also said that the former foreign secretary had told the Americans he was "entirely comfortable" to be making the case for military action a year before the invasion eventually took place.

Giving evidence to the inquiry last week, Straw insisted that he had only "very reluctantly" supported the war and that it was “the most difficult I have ever faced in my life.”

Wood's opinion of the illegality of the war was echoed by Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the government lawyer who was the only British civil servant to resign in protest over the Iraq war.

"I regarded the invasion of Iraq as illegal, and I therefore did not feel able to continue in my post. I would have been required to support and maintain the Government’s position in international fora,” Wilmshurst also told the inquiry.

"Acting contrary to the [United Nations] Charter, as I perceived the Government to be doing, would have the consequence of damaging the Untied Kingdom’s reputation as a State committed to the rule of law in international relations and to the United Nations,” she said.

The evidence from legal advisers come before former attorney general Lord Goldsmith is due to be questioned on Wednesday ahead of former prime minister Tony Blair on Friday.

On Tuesday, British writer and political activist George Monbiot announced he was launching a website – www.arrestblair.org – to raise money as a reward for people attempting a peaceful citizen's arrest of the former prime minister.

In 2008, Monbiot made an unsuccessful attempt to carry out a citizen's arrest of former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, when the latter attended the Hay Festival in western England, saying he was one of the main perpetrators of the Iraq War.

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End News / IRNA / News Code 920842