Jack Straw kept legal advice secret from Cabinet ahead of Iraq war to avoid leaks
Tony Blair and Jack Straw kept key information secret from the Cabinet ahead of the war in Iraq because they were afraid of leaks, the former foreign secretary has said.
Former foreign minister Jack Straw arrives to give evidence at a public inquiry into the Iraq War in London Photo: REUTERS
By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent 2:50PM GMT 02 Feb 2011
Comments
On the final day of hearings at the Iraq Inquiry, Mr Straw admitted he advised the Cabinet that invasion would be legal without a fresh United Nations mandate days after Lord Goldsmith, the then attorney general, had said privately that the opposite was true.
In the end, Lord Goldsmith changed his mind about the legality of the war on the eve of the invasion and gave the green light to conflict without ministers ever being made aware of his earlier reservations.
Explaining the decision not to share important documents with the Cabinet, Mr Straw said that he and Mr Blair had been “depressed” after a Cabinet discussion on Iraq a year before the 2003 invasion had become public.
"Any prime minister, faced with leaks like that, is bound to take appropriate alternative action," Mr Straw said.
The inquiry has heard that Iraq was not raised at Cabinet for another six months, and that formal papers on were never shared with ministers.
Mr Straw defended the then-prime minister’s style of “sofa government,” saying that while he preferred a more formal approach, this would not have resulted in a different outcome.
"His style was much less formal than mine, but the fact he used soft furnishings rather than hard chairs does not make him a bad person," he said.
"Nor … do I believe that a more formal process would have altered either the respect in which he was held by colleagues and the influence he had, nor the outcome of the decisions.
"But equally the fact the process was – frustratingly for some – less formal than it should have been doesn't necessarily mean the decisions were of a lower quality, nor that they lacked the fullest range of opinions in the input."
Mr Straw confirmed that the Cabinet was not provided with details of the military planning ahead of the war, but said that ministers would have had to be “deaf, dumb and blind” not to be aware that 46,000 British troops were massed on Iraq’s borders.
"It was a feature of the way that the prime minister ran Cabinet that most decisions were made on the basis of oral briefings, having been pre-cooked through the process of Cabinet committees," he added.
In the run up to the war, Mr Straw said he frequently warned Mr Blair that a policy of regime change in Iraq without the involvement of the UN would be "palpably illegal".
"I made that point in quite categorical terms to the prime minister on more than one occasion," he said.
"We are different people. It is hardly a secret that I came at this issue from a different perspective to the prime minister.
“However, I ended up at the same point as the prime minister – let me make that clear – and backed the position that he and the Cabinet and the House of Commons made to take military action."
Mr Straw confirmed reports that he had suggested “a way out” of military action to Mr Blair days before the invasion began.
Making clear that he supported the decision to go to war, he added that he had suggested to the then-prime minister that Britain could follow the lead of Spain and Italy by holding back from the initial conflict, and joining peace keeping operations only once Saddam Hussein had been toppled.
"I don't think anybody was keen on military action,” he said. "It's horrible and people are going to get killed. I was anxious that we should explore all possible alternatives.
"I also felt that as I owed the prime minister my loyalty, I also owed him the best and most robust advice I could give him."
Concluding the public hearings, Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry chairman, said that he hoped the Government would declassify more secret documents to enable the panel to come to accurate findings about the events surrounding the war.
He added: "It is going to take some months to deliver the report itself. I don't want to set an artificial deadline on our work at this stage. What I can say is that my colleagues and I wish to finish our report as quickly as possible."
political correspondent, mr blair, mr straw, information secret, formal approach, jack straw, soft furnishings, public inquiry, war in iraq, bad person, iraq war, goldsmith, foreign minister, leaks, reuters, legal advice, mandate, sofa, invasion, prime minister
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น