'Cover-up' claims over lord's letter

Published on Thursday 24 March 2005 11:54

FORMER Cabinet minister Clare Short accused the Government of a cover-up today after new evidence emerged about Attorney General Lord Goldsmith’s legal advice over the Iraq war.

The full text of a resignation letter by a senior lawyer at the Foreign Office suggests the Government’s top law officer changed his mind about the legality of the war just before the invasion.

On March 18, 2003, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the Foreign Office deputy legal adviser, wrote a letter of resignation. In it she said: "I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution. I cannot in conscience go along with the advice which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution."

But the Foreign Office censored out two crucial sentences in the version it published.

The full text, which has been obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, actually includes the sentences: "My views accord with the advice that has been given consistently in this office, before and after the adoption of UN Security Resolution 1441, and with what the Attorney General gave us as his view prior to his letter of March 7. The view expressed in that letter has of course changed again in what is now the official line."

Opponents claim that this shows Lord Goldsmith changed his mind twice on the issue.

Former international development secretary Ms Short, who quit the Cabinet over the war, said: "I think the Government had to try to cover it up because it is so devastating."