Goldsmith’s advice strikes at the heart of all that is wrong with cronyism

badman

To be fair, Goldsmith did defer to an expert on international law. He took advice from Sir Christopher Greenwood QC, then Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics, and now a Judge on the International Court of Justice. Professor Greenwood supported the legality of the war, one of very few international lawyers of repute to do so.

David Blackburn

Badman,

Well as they came to differently conclusions I'm not sure I get your point.

Frank P

And all the time we agonise and explicate our divisions and weakness to the enemies of the West and prattle on about 'international law' - a concept that has no substance whatsoever, the Muslim miasma thickens around us, as our culture and history dissolve before our very eyes and Sharia law and Dhimmitude loom large on the horizon.

Moreover, you nit-pickers are paying for the boondoggle at QEII Conference Hall and all who sail in her.

Why don't we just wait for the General Election and vote the bastards OUT? A more important question than all those put during this useless enquiry, is who do we then vote IN?! I don't see a suitable replacement.

EyeSee

Watching his testimony it is plain that he, like all the others is telling a story in which he is a star. Their comments are self serving and where necessary wander from the truth. Campbell of course has so much to cover up he was in knots, made more obvious by his 'clarification' which was just another version of 'not lying but answering the question I had in my head, rather than the one asked' (Clinton). Goldsmith changed his mind because as he said (though then 'amended') he was capable of being convinced. A friend once asked our boss, when similarly cornered 'do you want the truth or can I lie?' Blair is a national disgrace and it wil be funny on Friday, with all these versions floating around, as to how he slots in his own 'truth'. But then, when seizing power, he did say that New Labour wouldn't make 'factual statements' but instead issue 'narratives'. And so they have.

badman

David, Professor Greenwood reached the same conclusion as the Attorney General. That is my point. Professor Greenwood said that a second resolution was NOT required, which is where Goldsmith ended up as well.

David Blackburn

Badman,

Sorry I should have qualified that with the word 'initially', and read the comment back again obviously, sorry for typos.

Bill

The legality/illegality of the war will never be settled because there is no-one whose "expert" opinion actually matters.
The war happened. People in Iraq ARE better off than when they were ruled by a paranoid murdering thug and his family. True many thousands died and that is to everyone's shame. True, the post war planning appears to be non-existent.
But what I also find shameful is the self-righteous "not in my name" protesters who were quite happy to let Saddam continue to murder, rape & pillage and create a state of dire fear for the population of the land. Did these protesters actually know what they were protesting about? Did they really think that man was going to kiss goodbye to his lifestyle just because a group of wishy washy UNers said "naughty boy blah blah" We all know the UN is worthless - pointless.
We are now self flagelating - mea culpa x 3 for giving people the freedom to vote - embarrassingly their vote turnout was far larger than ours.
Personally I'm glad that SH and his disgusting crowd are either dead or likely to be so soon.
I appluad the troops (other than those who defiled their name by torture) who gave others the chance to vote - the chance to build their country and have a voice in their future.

Chuck Unsworth

And, David Blackburn, in a matter of this gravity and magnitude is it really wise to seek the advice of only a single 'expert'?

As we know, there were at least 26 others with profoundly different views - whose opinions were not sought (deliberately or otherwise) and whose advices, when finally transmitted to that Minister of State, Jack Straw, were simply and casually cast aside.

There's none so blind as those who will not see.

chris as usual

It looks like we have to accept that Goldsmith says he changed his mind after speaking to the Americans.
Therefore this comes down to examination of whatever evidence can be produced to show that legally this was a 'mistake'.
If it was a 'mistake', then Goldsmith's reputation will suffer some trashing although we are now told he is not an 'international lawyer'.
But this then begs all kind of questions. If Goldsmith is saying he did his best under the circumstances, did he listen to any impartial British international lawyers? It would seem not, although he claims his department were all in agreement that the invasion would be legal.
I think we deserve the truth.

Ivy Eileen

Re: Goldsmith "was not an international lawyer". Well, not in public international law but (insurance and other commercial disputes) he would have expertise in private international law. I cannot believe he didn't have somebody or bodies devilling for him in this public international law field.

Now, Straw of course - a pure politician, with a background apparently in criminal law - sometime, somewhere. Great expertise in the required field there.

As I posted yesterday, Goldsmith was outmanoeuvred by the politicians.

JONNY

You can justify anything you like if you wrap it up in a stretch of expensive silk.

Rhoda Klapp

Most of us have to decide on our own whether our planned actions are lawful. We have to do that even though untrained in law and in ignorance of the thousands of laws to which we are now subject.

If you have to ask 27 lawyers whether an action will be lawful, chances are that it will not. In real life, lawyers do not decide, judges and juries do.

JohnAnt

Good post, but the title is misleading -
'strikes at the heart of' means 'attempts to destroy at its source'.
You really mean the opposite: that it lays bare or reveals all that is wrong with cronyism.
Arguably Goldsmith's advice 'struck at the heart of' good government - not at the heart of cronyism.

JohnAnt

"Straw’s letter proves that there was a credible case against a second Resolution as a pre-requisite"
No, it doesn't. His argument that the members of the Security Council recognised that the declaration they'd signed meant that they'd come back to 'consider' a material breach in the sense simply of discussing it, rather than considering what action to take, is casuitical in the extreme. His notion that while they were 'considering', the US or some other UN state might justifiably go off and attack Iraq could never have been in the minds of the signatories.
If Goldsmith was 'persuaded' by the advice of US legal experts, can we see that advice please? It was rather important, after all.

ndm

Judge Gonzales

Jusge? There's an honorific for Gonzales one doesn't see much these days.

oldtimer

For the first time I watched a Chilcot session today. I reached two conclusions:
(1) the sagacity of the advice once offered, many years ago, by a prominent merchant banker (with a legal background), namely that if/when you are dealing with crap it is a good idea to have a piece of paper in your hand - especially when dealing with HMG;
(2) resolution 1441 was a diplomatic exercise in studied and deliberate ambiguity - so that it would meet the different diplomatic needs of the principal parties at the UN.

My reading is that Lord Goldsmith did not get the nuances and implications of these diplomatic ambiguities until he went to Washington. When he understood them better, he was able to advise his "client", the PM and HMG, his final advice.

I thought he did a good job of defending his conclusions that the war was legal. Whether it was wise or not, or sold on the basis of the dodgy dossier, are entirely different matters.

Cogito Ergosum

The Chilcot Enquiry is beginning to look like the Hutton Enquiry, with all the evidence stacking up against the government. But will Chilcot cop out with a whitewash, as Hutton did?

2trueblue

What the hell is it with these people that they are the colour of the last people they spoke with? Are they incapable of making a judgement on the facts, the situation, the law? Obviously not. Grow up, stand up for what is right and do not be swayed.

Does no one have the courage to stand by their convictions anymore?

R King

Was Goldsmith so incompetent that he was unable to work out for himself what 1441 was all about? Surely his first duty was to go back to the UN and ask for clarity. But no he and his master Blair only wanted to hear what suited Bush and Blair so errand boy Goldsmith was sent over to America where he get the answers Blair wanted.

It's simply appalling that so few people were allowed to make such an important decision with no checks in place to review the so called "evidence".

No wonder the evidence is not given under oath!

Chilcott will merely state that we must learn from the mistakes.......... BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

mitch

He was threatened or blackmailed perhaps with the "Kelly sanction".Blair made him and could easily break him.

salieri

“Straw’s letter proves that there was a credible case against a second Resolution as a pre-requisite, so legality is not necessarily at issue.” No, sir, Straw’s letter proves nothing beyond its own conceit, shamelessness and undergraduate-level sophistry. Legality is most definitely ‘at issue’ here.

There are many reasons why a lawyer can change his mind and not all of those reasons are dishonourable. We can sympathise especially with an Attorney who is there to advise the government on anything and everything and, once in while, is required to express an opinion on a difficult point of huge importance outside his field of expertise.

But that’s precisely when he must listen to the government lawyers who do have that expertise – in this case the FCO’s lawyers who, it appears, had already expressed clear and unanimous opinions. The very idea that advice on the legality of going to war could ever be “too cautious” is preposterous.

Within the constraints which were always going to neuter its findings - including selectivity in the documents made available, in time-honoured contradiction of the government’s assurances - this Inquiry was never going to be in a position to establish the reason why the Attorney did change his mind, still less that that reason was dishonourable.

We are now told, however, that the decisive factor was that the Americans said that the French had said that they privately accepted that a second resolution might not be essential after all. That doesn’t, on the face of it, seem a compelling intellectual basis for overturning an existing analysis of the law and reaching instead the conclusion which, mirabile dictu, the Attorney’s masters happened to desire.

Whatever the Inquiry finds it is open to the public, when assured that this volte-face was purely intellectual, simply to say: I don’t believe you.

Andrew Taylor

I wish that someone would invade us and conduct some much needed regime change right away! I'll write a letter saying it's legal and get my mate down the road to support it...

Rich de L

Bill
January 27th, 2010 6:15pm "what I also find shameful is the self-righteous "not in my name" protesters who were quite happy to let Saddam continue to murder, rape & pillage and create a state of dire fear for the population of the land."

Quite right, but were only agreeing with a certain Tony Blair, who said the sanctions policy was working (when Clinton was in power) before saying invasion was needed (when Bush was in power)

Regarding this inquiry:
Rumsfeld confirmed that Saddam was for the chop with or without UK support, and anyone with a brain knew that the US would cock it all up.
Blair had no say whatsoever in the decision to remove Hussein, so surely inquiry into its "legality" are pointless. Sending our troops into a badly-planned war, just so Blair could suck up to the US, is certainly appalling policy, but it isn't against any law, is it?

JONNY

Matthew Parris raises the killer point in today's Times.
What would Goldsmith's view been if his client Blair and his other client Bush had decided sanctions were working - but Russia or China decided to jump the gun and invade, citing 1441's implicit authority?
Would he have told his 'clients' to keep quiet because they had no legal leg to stand on?

carol

what a shambolic government, resorting to bully boy tactics to get its way. Goldsmith is a fool he never bothered to check with the French and just accepted the american version of events. This enquiry has just confirmed that all politicians do not really care about the plight of people. Its all about serving their over inflated ego. The only reason Bliar suggested the UN route was to save face in Parliament and lied to achieve that crucial vote. I hope Bliar gets his just reward for all the lives wasted - this man's ego is off the scale. May he rest in shit.

DZ

Goldsmith could have resigned and it would certainly have thrown a small spanner into the works. But these charlatans don't do that. No principles for which to resign (unless their hand is actually trapped in the till).