British military chief reveals new legal fears over Iraq war

NNN0LHI

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Sat Apr-30-05 08:58 PM
Original message

British military chief reveals new legal fears over Iraq war

Edited on Sat Apr-30-05 08:58 PM by NNN0LHI

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1474335,00.html#article_continue

� Forces head in remarkable 'jail' claim
� Top law officer met key Bush officials

Antony Barnett and Martin Bright
Sunday May 1, 2005
The Observer

The man who led Britain's armed forces into Iraq has said that Tony Blair and the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, will join British soldiers in the dock if the military are ever prosecuted for war crimes in Iraq.

In a remarkably frank interview that goes to the heart of the political row over the Attorney General's legal advice, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, said he did not have full legal cover from prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

'If my soldiers went to jail and I did, some other people would go with me,' said Boyce.

In his most detailed explanation yet of why he demanded an unequivocal assurance from lawyers that the war was legal, he said: 'I wanted to make sure that we had this anchor which has been signed by the government law officer ...

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Roland99

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Sat Apr-30-05 08:59 PM
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1. I think I know what Blair's thinking...

"bugger! bugger! bugger! bugger!"

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autorank

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Sat Apr-30-05 09:17 PM
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2. Labour loses over this! What fools Labour has been to keep Blair

And to the Labour apologists on this forum, don't start whining about how bad for Britain John Howard will be. He will be bad only because Labour lacked the backbone to dump the war criminal Tony Blair. The Guardian link above is well worth reading. Basically, the supreme British commander is assuming that the war violated international law, based on the recently leaked full legal advice to Blair. So there you have it. The 13 pages unpublished show it was illegal but gussied up in a much shorter advisory by the spineless Goldsmith. The people know the war was based on a lie and now the British commander is running for cover.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Labour. And stupid Gordon Brown. He sat with Blair at the press conference this week and endorsed Blair and the war.

VOTE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT AND PRAY

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struggle4progress

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Sun May-01-05 10:28 PM
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3. kick

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quaoar

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Sun May-01-05 10:30 PM
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4. 'If my soldiers went to jail and I did, some other people would go with me

Bush perhaps?

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