Straw defends role over 'illegal' invasion of Iraq

TWO senior Labour figures have hit back after their role in backing the invasion of Iraq was condemned as "flawed".

Lord Goldsmith and Lord Chancellor Jack Straw defended their actions after Lord Bingham, the former senior law lord and one of Britain's most respected judicial experts, described the military action by Britain and the US as a "serious violation of international law".

The intervention by Lord Bingham, a former Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice, will reignite the debate over the Iraq war as the Government seeks to finalise a deal with Baghdad on British troops remaining in the south of the country.

Lord Goldsmith, who was Attorney General at the time of the 2003 invasion, defended his view that it was lawful.

He said: "Lord Bingham is entitled to his own legal perspective five years after the event, but at the time and since then many nations other than ours took part in the action and did so believing that they were acting lawfully."

He added that the UN resolution that Iraq was deemed to have failed to comply with, and which ultimately led to the invasion, did not need further determination by the Security Council. Mr Straw, who was Foreign Secretary in 2003, accused Lord Bingham of failing to fully take into consideration the key UN resolution 1441 and specifically whether it laid down the need for an "additional lock" further decision to allow military action.

"In the event, the agreed text of 1441 was in accordance with the US/UK position that this resolution did not require this further lock," he said.

"So I do not accept Lord Bingham's conclusions, which do not, I am afraid, take proper account of the text of Security Council Resolution 1441 nor its negotiating history."

Lord Bingham said Lord Goldsmith's legal advice to the Government failed to acknowledge the lack of hard evidence implicating Iraq's non-compliance with UN resolutions.

Furthermore, he argued, it neglected to make clear that only the Security Council could authorise further action.

"This statement was flawed in two fundamental respects," he told the British Institute of International and Comparative Law last night.

"It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had."

Lord Bingham, 75, who stepped down in July from his role as a senior law lord, added that Lord Goldsmith's advice suggested that a decision over whether Iraq had not complied with UN resolutions could be made by someone other than the UN Security Council.

"If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK and some other states was unauthorised by the Security Council there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and of the rule of law," he said.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg repeated his call for a full public inquiry into the decision to go to war. Supporting Lord Bingham's stance, said: "This is a damning condemnation of what was an unjustified invasion which we now know to have flouted international law."