9:43pm UK, Tuesday January 26, 2010

Miranda Richardson, Sky News Online

Two of the Government's most senior lawyers at the time of the Iraq war have said they believed it was illegal without a second UN resolution.

In a written statement Sir Michael Wood, who was the Foreign Office's chief legal adviser in the run-up to the conflict said: "I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law.

"In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorised by the Security Council, and had no other legal basis in international law."

Sir Michael told the inquiry the then-foreign secretary Jack Straw rejected advice from his department's lawyers that the war would be unlawful without a second Security Council resolution.

Sir Michael wrote to Mr Straw on January 24, 2003 to express concerns about comments he made to then-US vice president Dick Cheney in Washington.

Mr Straw told Mr Cheney that Britain would "prefer" a second resolution but it would be "OK" if they tried and failed to get one "a la Kosovo".

Sir Michael commented that this was "completely wrong from a legal point of view".

He wrote in his letter to Mr Straw: "I hope there is no doubt in anyone's mind that, without a further decision of the Council, and absent extraordinary circumstances of which at present there is no sign, the UK cannot lawfully use force against Iraq to ensure compliance with its Security Council WMD resolution."

Sir Michael said Mr Straw held a meeting with him after this but did not accept his advice.

He told the Chilcot Inquiry: "He took the view that I was being very dogmatic and that international law was pretty vague and that he wasn't used to people taking such a firm position.

"When he had been at the Home Office, he had often been advised things were unlawful but he had gone ahead anyway and won in the courts."

Sir Michael said this was "probably the first and only occasion" that a minister rejected his legal advice in this way.

He stressed that ultimately it was the then-attorney general Lord Goldsmith's view which counted.

However, he said that in the weeks leading up to the war, there appeared to be a reluctance by ministers to seek Lord Goldsmith's advice until very late in the day.

Sir Michael's former deputy Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who quit in protest at the invasion, told the inquiry she too thought the invasion was illegal.

Ms Wilmshurst resigned from the Foreign Office before the invasion

In her written statement, she said: "Before the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1441, the advice given by FCO legal advisers was that an invasion of Iraq would be contrary to international law in the absence of a new Security Council resolution.

"I shared and contributed to this view."

She added: "Existing Security Council resolutions did not authorise the use of force.

"There was no other legal justification. A desire to change the regime did not give a legal basis for military action."

Ms Wilmshurst told the inquiry that Foreign Office lawyers were united in the belief that a further resolution of the Security Council was needed to authorise military action.

"We were talking about a massive invasion of another country, a change in the government of that country, and in those circumstances it did seem to me that we ought to follow the safest route," she said.

"But it was clear that the Attorney General was not going to stand in the way of the Government."

Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot asked whether she thought that Mr Straw's views had been affected by the fact he was also a qualified lawyer.

She shot back: "He is not an international lawyer."

Ms Wilmshurst became the only UK civil servant to quit over the war when she resigned before the first attacks on Iraq, telling her superiors an invasion without UN sanction would be a "crime of aggression".

Sir Michael said he too had considered resigning over the issue