Publish and be damned on Iraq, says Campbell

Times
By Angus Macleod, Scottish Political Editor



SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL increased pressure on the Government yesterday to publish the full text of the Attorney-General’s legal advice on the war in Iraq by telling ministers that they should not make the mistake of confusing their own interest with that of the public.

The Liberal Democrat deputy leader told his party’s spring Scottish conference in Perth that if they published the advice from Lord Goldsmith in full they might be criticised, but he added: “Publish and be damned, yes — but don’t publish, and be damned even further.”

Sir Menzies raised questions about Tony Blair’s involvement in the process which led to a crucial meeting between Lord Goldsmith and two of the Prime Minister’s closest advisers. He claimed that it was now accepted that Britain had gone to war on a flawed prospectus; that there were no weapons of mass destruction capable of deployment within 45 minutes, that there was a serious failure of intelligence and that the preparations were inadequate.

The issue, he said, had been highlighted by the evidence that the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, first wrote an opinion that recognised the possible illegality of military action but had then resolved those doubts without a further formal opinion. “Why did the AttorneyGeneral attend the meeting with Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan, two of the Prime Minister’s closest advisers, to discuss his legal opinion? Who instigated that meeting? Did the Prime Minister himself ask for it? When was the Prime Minister told about its outcome? Was the Cabinet advised that meeting may have been an important staging post on the journey the Attorney-General made from recognising illegality to dismissing it?”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1504334,00.html

SO....not Alistair Campbell....

Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Cheney were probably connected while those meetings were in session.