Secret papers warned British Prime Minister War on Iraq was 'illegal'

Secret government documents show that Tony Blair was warned by his own advisers a year before going to war that there was no growing threat from Saddam Hussein and that invading Iraq would be illegal. Confidential papers, including a secret memo from Jack Straw to the prime minister, say that Iraq had not "stepped up" its weapons programmes and that invading Iraq would be "legally very difficult". They advised that the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme should be emphasised to help make the legal case for war even though intelligence showed "the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programme" had not speeded up. The secret papers, which the Independent Foreign Service has seen, show the government was warned a year before the invasion of Iraq that intelligence on WMD in Iraq was "poor". "The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them post-11 September," says a memo from the Foreign Office's then political director, Peter Ricketts, entitled Iraq: Advice for the Prime Minister. The secret documents give a glimpse of the serious doubts at the highest level of government about the legality of the war. [more ]