434. In the letter of 14 March 2003 from Lord Goldsmith’s office to No.10, which is addressed in Section 5 of the Report, Mr Blair was told that an essential ingredient of the legal basis was that he, himself, should be satisfied of the fact that Iraq was in breach of resolution 1441.
435. In accordance with that advice, it was Mr Blair who decided that, so far as the UK was concerned, Iraq was and remained in breach of resolution 1441.
436. Apart from No.10’s response to the letter of 14 March, sent the following day, in terms that can only be described as perfunctory, no formal record was made of that decision and the precise grounds on which it was made remain unclear.
437. The Inquiry was told, and it accepts, that it would have been possible at that stage for the UK Government to have decided not to go ahead with military action if it had been necessary to make a decision to do so; or if the House of Commons on 18 March had voted against the Government.
438. Although, when resolution 1441 was adopted, there was unanimous support for a rigorous inspections and monitoring regime backed by the threat of military force as the means to disarm Iraq, there was no such consensus in the Security Council in March 2003. If the matter had been left to the Security Council to decide, military action might have been postponed and, possibly, avoided.
439. The Charter of the United Nations vests responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security in the Security Council. The UK Government was claiming to act on behalf of the international community “to uphold the authority of the Security Council”, knowing that it did not have a majority in the Security Council in support of its actions. In those circumstances, the UK’s actions undermined the authority of the Security Council.
440. A determination by the Security Council on whether Iraq was in fact in material breach of resolution 1441 would have furthered the UK’s aspiration to uphold the authority of the Council.
The timing of Lord Goldsmith’s advice on the interpretation of resolution 1441
441. Following the adoption of resolution 1441, a decision was taken to delay the receipt of formal advice from Lord Goldsmith.
442. On 11 November 2002, Mr Powell told Lord Goldsmith that there should be a meeting some time before Christmas to discuss the legal position.
443. On 9 December, formal “instructions” to provide advice were sent to Lord Goldsmith. They were sent by the FCO on behalf of the FCO and the MOD as well as No. 10.
