Former prime minister accused of 'not facing up to facts' as he gives evidence to Chilcot inquiry

• Paul Lewis and Vikram Dodd
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 13.26 GMT
• Article history

Highlights from Tony Blair's evidence to the Iraq inquiry Link to this video

The families of British military personnel killed in Iraq condemned Tony Blair's performance before the Chilcot inquiry today, accusing him of being disrespectful.

One, Theresea Evans, asked the former prime minister to look her in the eye and say sorry for the loss of her son.

Evans, from Llandudno, North Wales – whose 24-year-old son, Llywelyn, died in a Chinook helicopter crash in 2003 – said: "I would simply like Tony Blair to look me in the eye and say he was sorry. Instead, he is in there smirking."

Anne Donnachie, from Reading, Berkshire, whose 18-year-old son, Paul, was killed by a sniper in 2006, said she blamed Blair for his death.

"From what I have heard this morning, he is just denying everything," she said. "He will just not face up to the facts. I believe he made a massive mistake when he sent my son to Iraq."

Sarah Chapman, from Cambridge, whose brother, Sergeant Bob O'Connor, died five years ago, said it would be better if Blair was facing the families rather than sitting with his back to them as witnesses are required to do.

"He is being very adamant about his views, as we expected, but it is clear he did not share all the papers before the invasion with the rest of his cabinet," she said.

"I am disgusted by that. It is obvious he acted alone."

Anti-war protesters outside the inquiry were denied a chance to direct their chants at the former prime minister in person when he used a side entrance to make his way into the inquiry.

When he began giving evidence inside the QEII Centre in Westminster, a building fortified with steel barriers and lines of police, campaigners stopped their chants of "war criminal", turned their backs and began listening as the names of civilians and military personnel killed in the conflict were read out.

The crowds dissipated at the end of the morning, but numbers were expected to build again towards the end of the afternoon when the session ends and Blair leaves the inquiry.

For many, today will be the last in a line of protests against the Iraq war which began when up to two million people took to the streets to march against the invasion almost seven years ago.

"He [Blair] does not have the integrity to come and face the people," Lindsey German, the convener of the Stop the War Coalition, said. "Sliding in by a back door entrance is typical of his lies, deceit and evasion."

Andrew Murray, the chairman of the anti-war group, added: "This cowardly and deceitful entrance is typical of how the former prime minister sold the war to the country – behind the backs of the public."

Scotland Yard said there were at least 250 protestors and reported that officers had made no arrests.

By 9am, around 300 mainly older activists had gathered by the building in the cold and rain.

One of the first to arrive, at 7am, was Noel Hamel, the 67-year-old chair of the Kingston Peace Council. He had woken in the early hours in order to get to central London by bus and tube.

A disenfranchised former Labour party member who campaigned for Blair in 1997, he said: "I was out there knocking on doors, proposing motions.

"I just couldn't have imagined a Labour government taking us to a war of this kind while being so deceitful about it."

As word spread that Blair had already entered the centre, chants of "Tony Blair, to the Hague" began.

Ruby Lescott, another ex-Labour supporter in her 60s, said her "deep-rooted, immovable rage" was not only directed at Blair but also at his closest ministers.

"The cabinet – most of them – were reluctant about [the war]," she added. "The Labour government has eroded the virtues of our parliamentary system."

Among the few younger faces in the crowd, Lois Clifton, 19, and Emma Clewer, an 18-year-old fellow LSE university student, admitted their attempts to leaflet for the protest had been disappointing.

"We needed more people here," Clewer said. "It's a chance for people to show their anger."

During the start of the invasion, both were in their early teens and recalled the marches.

"There were a lot of walkouts at school," Clifton said. "I wasn't as aware as I am now ... but I knew what was happening was wrong."

A heavy police presence, including officers from the Metropolitan police's specialist Territorial Support Group, watched from behind barricades surrounding the centre.

As is common at protests, Forward Intelligence Team surveillance officers jotted down notes of what speakers were saying.

Tony Blair to boost earnings as paid speaker for Mayfair hedge fund

• Possible £2,000-a-minute fees to talk to financiers
• Firm is managed by significant Tory donor

• Elena Moya
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 January 2010 20.20 GMT
• Article history

Tony Blair meets his public in younger days. The former PM has secured a lucrative new speaker deal with hedge fund Lansdowne Partners. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA Archive/PA Photos

 

Tony Blair will add to the riches he has made since leaving office after agreeing to become a paid speaker for Lansdowne Partners, a London-based hedge fund managed by a major Tory party donor.

Blair will give some private speeches to staff of the Mayfair-based fund this year, potentially earning him hundreds of thousands of pounds, it has emerged.

The former prime minister's spokesman declined to comment on his fees, although he is reported to earn as much as £180,000 for 90 minutes for his thoughts on geopolitical matters in countries from Spain to the Philippines. That works out at about £2,000 a minute.

"He [Blair] remains one of the most popular speakers around the world," the spokesman said.

Blair, 56, has made more than £10m since leaving office from deals including books, advisory roles and event appearances. He is reported to have received £4.6m for his memoirs, to be published by Random House after the general election. Blair also receives about £2m for an advisory and representative role with US investment bank JP Morgan, and another half a million from Zurich Financial Services. He has a £63,000 annual pension, funded by UK taxpayers.

However, he spends most of his time as the UN envoy in the Middle East, a job that is unpaid, the spokesman said. Blair spends between one week and 10 days a month in the region, away from his £4m Connaught Square home in central London.

But talking to a hedge fund is likely to spark anger in the Labour party as it tries to toughen regulation and impose heavier taxes on the financial sector.

Lansdowne became known for making money by betting on the fall of Barclays and Northern Rock shares at the peak of the credit crunch. The fund made an estimated £100m from the demise of the now nationalised Northern Rock.

The move is also controversial because one of the firm's founders, the former Goldman Sachs banker Paul Ruddock, has donated about £260,000 to the Conservative party. The sum is enough to secure him membership of the Tory leader's 100-strong elite donors' club without denting his estimated £350m personal fortune. After his firm sold a 20% stake to Morgan Stanley, Ruddock now carries out some philanthropic jobs, including being the chairman of the board of trustees of the Victoria & Albert museum.

Blair follows the steps of two former Conservative leaders into the lucrative hedge fund sector. The London-based Centaurus fund used to employ Kenneth Clarke, the shadow business secretary, and the former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar until they were removed from the board after losses by the fund linked to the credit crunch.

Hedge funds often employ former politicians to gain better knowledge of the political and investment climate in certain countries or sectors. Their knowledge of how governments work and their network of contacts help financiers gain information before deciding on an investment.

In this case, Blair will not talk to Lansdowne clients but only to some of the firm's 100 global staff. Blair, who still defends his decision to invade Iraq in his speeches, arranges his talks and appearances through the Washington Speakers Bureau, an agency for public figures such as Sarah Palin and George Bush.

Date set for Tony Blair at Iraq inquiry

Updated on 18 January 2010

By Channel 4 News

It has been announced Tony Blair is to make his long-awaited appearance before the Iraq inquiry on Friday 29 January.

Mr Blair was prime minister when Britain sent 45,000 troops as part of the US-led invasion to get rid of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It was one of the Labour government's most unpopular decisions. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest on the streets of London and in cities around the UK.

Widespread doubts were raised about the invasion's legality, and to this day critics accuse Blair and George W Bush of misleading the public over claims Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Details of Mr Blair's scheduled appearance were announced on the Iraq inquiry's website earlier. He will spend an entire day answering questions on 29 January.

A ballot will be held to allocate public seats to watch Blair give evidence, while a third of the 60 or so available spaces will be reserved for families of soldiers killed in the conflict.

Gordon Brown set up the inquiry last year following the end of UK operations in Iraq.

The five-man Chilcot team is examining Britain's role before, during and after the conflict. The panel has the power to decide who to call up and when. Its stated aim is to learn lessons from Britain's involvement in the war.

Last week, Tony Blair's former communications chief Alastair Campbell told the inquiry that the prime minister had assured then US president George Bush in 2002 Britain would back military action, if diplomatic efforts to disarm Saddam did not work.

He said: "I think the prime minister was all the way through this trying to get it resolved without a single shot being fired."

But Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff, today told the inquiry Mr Blair had never given an "undertaking signed in blood".

Mr Powell said that in his note to Mr Bush following the meeting at Crawford, Mr Blair was trying to make clear what would be a sensible basis to "go ahead".

He said: "What he was talking about was the danger of unintended consequences. Suppose it became militarily tricky, Iraq suffered unexpected civilian casualties, the Iraqis feeling ambivalent about being invaded."

Mr Blair's appearance will be preceded on Wednesday next week by the former attorney general Lord Goldsmith , who issued the controversial advice that military action against Iraq was legal.

Other key witnesses appearing next week will be Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office legal adviser who quit in protest at the invasion. She is due to appear on Tuesday.

Two former defence secretaries, Des Browne and John Hutton, will give evidence on Monday while former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett will be appearing on Tuesday.

Jack Straw questioned the justification for the invasion of Iraq in a 2002 letter. Photograph: Dan Chung

Jack Straw privately warned Tony Blair that an invasion of Iraq was legally dubious, questioned what such action would achieve, and challenged US claims about the threat from Saddam Hussein, it was revealed today .

Straw, foreign secretary at the time, gave what now seems prophetic advice in a letter marked "secret and personal", 10 days before Blair met George Bush at the US president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. That was nearly a year before the invasion.

In his letter, about which he is expected to be questioned when he testifies at the Chilcot inquiry this week, Straw warned Blair, then prime minister: "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few … there is at present no majority inside the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] for any military action against Iraq."

Straw warned of two legal "elephant traps". He said, "regime change per se is no justification for military action", and "the weight of legal advice here is that a fresh [UN] mandate may well be required".

Despite the warnings, a previously leaked briefing paper for a meeting of the war cabinet in July 2002 states: "When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change."

The Chilcot inquiry has heard that the Crawford meeting was crucial. It was there that Blair assured Bush that Britain would join a US-led invasion of Iraq and topple Saddam despite legal advice which noted that regime change could not be justified, according to witnesses.

The inquiry has heard that Blair agreed it was preferable first to pursue UN backing for an invasion.

Straw also told Blair before the Crawford meeting that Iraq posed no greater threat to the UK than it had done previously and questioned whether it posed as great a threat as Iran or North Korea. He added that there was "no credible evidence" linking Iraq al-Qaida and that the "threat from Iraq has not worsened as a result of 11 September".

Straw continued: "If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the US would now be considering military action against Iraq."

As foreign secretary, with responsibility for MI6, Straw would have given his warnings to Blair based on advice from the intelligence agencies. His letter to Blair, leaked to the Sunday Times, questioned the purpose of an invasion. He warned Blair: "We have also to answer the big question – what will this action achieve? There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything." He added that there was "no certainty that the replacement regime will be better".

The Chilcot inquiry has heard how ill-prepared the US and British governments were for the aftermath of the invasion and how ministers prevented military commanders from drawing up plans and ordering equipment so as to avoid alerting the public and parliament that military action was likely.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, is likely to be pressed on this when he gives evidence to the Chilcot inquiry on Tuesday. He is also likely to be asked about the attitude of the Treasury under Gordon Brown, who was then chancellor, towards requests for more money from the Ministry of Defence.

Hoon can expect to be questioned about why he did not explain that the notorious 45-minute claim in the government's now discredited Iraqi weapons dossier referred only to battlefield biological and chemical weapons and not to long-range missiles.

Hoon said he did not tell Blair and did not correct misleading reports in the media at the time because he found the task of correcting points made in the press to be time-consuming and frustrating.

Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief who gave evidence to the Chilcot inquiry last week, has written to the inquiry saying he did not want to give the impression that Blair was entitled to say that claims about Saddam's weapons programme were "beyond doubt" even if intelligence chiefs had disagreed.

Campbell insists Blair was entitled to make the claim because he believed it was supported by the intelligence.

Senior officials responsible for assessing the intelligence, including Sir John Scarlett, then chairman of the joint intelligence committee, have questioned Blair's claim in earlier evidence to the inquiry.

The inquiry has revealed that it took evidence from Lt Gen Sir John Reith, chief of joint operations at the time of the invasion, in secret last Friday.

A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times said 52% of people believed Blair deliberately misled the country over the war. and 23% thought he should be tried as a war criminal. According to the poll, 49% of people believed Campbell did not tell the truth about the Iraq war at the time and was still not telling the truth, while 31% thought he told the truth as he saw it at the time.

'We will be there': Blair gave secret pledge to Bush on Iraq war, Campbell reveals

Former No 10 communications chief Alastair Campbell gives insight into correspondence with White House in months before start of war in 2003 which led to Saddam Hussein's removal

• Richard Norton-Taylor
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 January 2010 21.16 GMT
• Article history

Alastair Campbell, broadcaster and author, at home in London. Photograph: David Levene

Tony Blair privately assured President George Bush in letters written a year before the invasion of Iraq that Britain would "be there" in any US-led attack on the country, it was revealed at the Chilcot inquirytoday.

The disclosure came during sometimes sharp exchanges with Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief and close adviser, who described Gordon Brown, the then chancellor, as "one of the key ministers" Blair spoke to about Iraq.

In almost five hours of questioning, Campbell:

• Defended "every single word" in the Blair government's now largely discredited dossier on Iraq's banned weapons programme.

• Said Britain should be "proud" of its role in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

• Said Blair tried to get the conflict with Iraq resolved "without a shot being fired".

Blair wrote "quite a lot of notes" to Bush in 2002 and their substance was not shared with the cabinet, Campbell made clear. Asked if the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, knew their contents, Campbell replied: "I very much doubt if drafts went round the system … They were very frank." However, Campbell said they were discussed with Sir David Manning, Blair's foreign policy adviser.

He said the tenor of the letters was: "We share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed." Campbell added: "If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there. That would be the tenor of the communication to the president."

The letters Blair wrote to Bush have been passed to the Chilcot inquiry. It has not given any indication about whether it will publish them.

Campbell was responding to persistent questioning from Sir Roderic Lyne, a member of the inquiry panel and a former ambassador. Lyne referred Campbell to a leaked document in which Manning, on a trip to Washington in March 2002, a year before the invasion, told Blair he had underlined Britain's position to ­Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser.

"I said you [Blair] would not budge in your support for regime change, but you had to manage a press, a parliament, and a public opinion which is very different than anything in the States," Manning wrote.

Responding to Lyne's question, Campbell said: "The prime minister's overall approach was saying 'there's going to be disarmament. We're going to do our level best to get that through the diplomatic route, without a single shot being fired but, if push comes to shove and the diplomatic route fails, Britain would see it as its responsibility and its duty to take part in military action'."

Blair was determined to disarm Saddam, Campbell said. Blair's message to the US in April 2002 was he would try to do it through UN resolutions. ­However, "if the only way is regime change through military action then the British government will support the American government", Campbell said, describing Blair's view.

The inquiry has also heard from ­senior British diplomats that regime change was being discussed by Blair in the US in 2002 even though, according to leaked documents, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, warned the PM that military action aimed at regime change, as opposed to disarmament, would be unlawful.

Campbell stoutly defended the ­September 2002 Iraqi weapons dossier which stated that Saddam was continuing to build up a nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme – claims that were shown to be without foundation after the invasion. He insisted that Sir John Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was adamant throughout that he was "100% in charge" of the process of drawing up the dossier.

"At no time did I ask him to beef up, to override, any of the judgments that he had," Campbell told the inquiry. "John Scarlett said to me 'This is a document the prime minister is going to present to parliament, there are massive global expectations around it, and I need a bit of presentational support,' and that is what I gave him."

At no time did Scarlett or intelligence officers question the contents of the dossier, said Campbell.

Campbell on occasions sharply criticised the British media and played down any influence he had over journalists. Asked about the notorious claim in the weapons dossier that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes he said it had only been given "iconic" status by the press.

Asked if it could have been made clear that the claim only ever applied to battle­field weapons rather than longer range missiles, Campbell replied: "Obviously, but it's not that big a point."

He disclosed that the international development secretary Clare Short, who subsequently resigned over the war, had been excluded from discussions on the aftermath of the conflict because of fears of leaks.

"I think in an ideal world the secretary of state for international development would, should and could have been involved in all those discussions," he said. "It was no secret that she was very difficult to handle at times. I think sometimes the military found her approach to them difficult to deal with."

Since Tony Blair stepped down, he has received millions of pounds from an unusual mixture of income streams. His financial affairs have been described as 'Byzantine' and 'opaque'. Can you shed any light on them?

• David Leigh and Ian Griffiths
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 December 2009 13.50 GMT
• Article history

Tony Blair has a consultancy, charities and a multimillion-pound book deal. Photograph: Martin Argles

The former prime minister Tony Blair has received millions of pounds through an unusual mixture of commercial, charitable and religious income streams. Since he stepped down from office in 2007, his financial affairs have been described by observers as "Byzantine" and "opaque". The Guardian is now launching an online competition offering a prize to the person who can shine the brightest light on those financial structures.

Blair has a commercial consultancy, called Tony Blair Associates, plus jobs advising a US bank and a Swiss insurer. He has a multimillion pound book deal. He also has a charity, the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative, and another called the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. But much of the income, which includes charitable donations from other sources, has been funnelled through a structure called Windrush Ventures No 3 Limited Partnership. Our contest asks: what is Windrush?

Blair has a complex web of structures involving 12 different legal entities handling the unprecedented millions he is receiving since he stepped down from office in 2007.

So mystifying are the former prime minister's financial structures – which involve highly specialised limited partnerships and parallel companies – that the Guardian today launches an open invitation to tax specialists and accountants to attempt to explain the motivation behind such structures. We have published the Companies House documents and other legal papers regarding the structure of the partnerships at guardian.co.uk and invite expert comment via our site at guardian.co.uk/politics/series/blair-mystery.

There is no suggestion Blair is doing anything illegal. But he refuses to explain the purpose of the secretive partnerships.

Tax specialists say Blair could use these unusual arrangements at some point in the future to seek to transfer millions tax-free to his four children.

Blair denies, however, that the structures are such an inheritance tax avoidance scheme, known as a "family limited partnership".

"Family limited partnerships" were being publicized to lawyers and accountants in November 2007 at the time Blair's lawyers started to set up his structures.

Known in the trade as "Flips", family limited partnerships are a way of getting round stricter inheritance tax rules in the 2006 budget, imposed by Gordon Brown while Blair was still prime minister.

Jay Krause, a partner at the law firm Withers, is credited with inventing the Flips concept for use in the UK. He told the Guardian it is "entirely possible" to use such Blair-style partnership structures legally to avoid inheritance tax.

Instead of setting up trusts, which are now heavily taxed, children can be granted an ongoing interest in the partnership's wealth, as a "limited partner".

There are other more conventional uses of such specialised limited partnerships, accountants say. These include venture capital schemes, private equity investments, or short-term projects such as film finance.

In each of those cases, the so-called limited partner invests cash, but has little control over what is done with it by the general partner.

In return, they are protected from unlimited liability if anything goes wrong.

None of this seems to apply to Tony Blair, however. No outside "angel" investing cash in Blair Enterprises appears in the records. The structure is so artificial that in one part of it, Blair is, in effect, forming partnerships with himself.

The former prime minister refuses to offer any explanation of why he is using the complex structures.

As they stand, they were recently described by the Financial Times as "neither tax efficient nor managerially useful".

Millions of pounds have been funnelled through one arrangement called Windrush Ventures and a second parallel structure called Firerush Ventures.

They may handle some of the large amounts coming in from Blair's book deal, his six-figure speaking fees, his banking and insurance consultancies, and his pay from Middle Eastern regimes.

The Windrush structure pays for Blair's £560,000 a year lease on his Mayfair office, in Grosvenor Square near the US embassy.

Blair's profit-making commercial schemes involve 12 different Windrush and Firerush legal entities centring on a pair of "limited partnerships".

His spokesman, former No 10 staff member Matthew Doyle, refuses to say who Blair's partner is.

Windrush Ventures No 3 LP, for example, consists on paper of a partnership between an entity owned by Blair himself and an anonymous off-the-shelf company.

This off-the-shelf company, which appears to have been set up by Alex Harle, Blair's lawyer at the Westminster solicitors Bircham, Dyson Bell, is merely called BDBCO No 819 Ltd.

Set up as a nominee company to act as a trustee or an executor of a will, this entity does not reveal its ownership on records at Companies House. Instead, its shares are listed as held by a second off-the-shelf entity, BDBCO No 822.

This company in turn conceals its true ownership. Its shares are listed as held by the lawyers, acting as nominees.

This partner company does not appear to have made any significant investments on its own behalf. The register shows that its sole contribution to the partnership when it was set up in December 2007 was the sum of £19.

The Guardian asked Doyle who owned Blair's partner company. We also asked for the terms of the partnership agreement which divides up the rights to Blair's money. We asked the purpose of the schemes, and what funds had been paid into them.

Doyle refused to answer. He even refused to say why the name "Windrush" was chosen.

In a written statement, he said: "Why we set it up ... was in order to allow Mr Blair's office sensibly to administer his different projects, in accordance with relevant regulations and company law in the UK. He has an operation that has over 80 people working for it around the world. This was done on the basis of advice."

The limited financial information available under company law shows that more than £6m has been passed through the Windrush partnerships, and on to a company owned personally by Blair, called Windrush Ventures Ltd.

The £6m is extracted from the partnership funds by being described as "management fees" going to the general partner – which is a Blair-owned entity.

There is no published record of what other cash or assets remain in the partnership, or how it will be distributed.

The opacity of Blair's Windrush structures is increased by the fact that they have also been used to handle some charitable donations for projects in Africa.

A Sainsbury family charity, the Gatsby foundation, declares it has paid a total of £992,000 to the Windrush limited partnership. This was for charitable projects in Rwanda, in the two financial years to April 2009.

The Gates foundation, funded by the founder of Microsoft, declares it paid $2.46m (£1.49m) to the Windrush LP in June 2008, for similar capacity-building projects in Sierra Leone.

Blair this year applied to set up a charity, the Tony Blair Africa Governance initiative, in February 2009, according to the Charity Commission.

But its application was not accepted until this month, partly because of its novelty and partly through concerns as to whether it was sufficiently separated from Blair's personal office arrangements.

The link with Blair and his office was "one of the issues we considered ... when looking at public benefit and the independence of the charity," the Commission said.

BLAIR'S WEALTH

Blair is estimated to be in the process of receiving up to £14m, making him one of Britain's wealthiest ex-prime ministers. This includes a £4.6m memoirs deal with Random House.

He is also receiving a series of US fees from the Washington Speakers Bureau for making speeches estimated to include a £600,000 signing-on fee; consultancies with the US bank, JP Morgan and with Swiss insurers Zurich Financial Services; and commercial consultancy deals through his private firm, Tony Blair Associates, with regimes in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates among others.

The growth in Blair's personal wealth was illustrated in May 2008, when he agreed to pay £5.75m for the late actor John Gielgud's Buckinghamshire residence, described as "a small stately home".

This was in addition to the £4.45m paid earlier for a London home in Connaught Square, together with an adjoining mews house.

Iraq Inquiry bombshell: Secret letter to reveal new Blair war lies

By Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday Political Editor
Last updated at 1:48 AM on 29th November 2009

An explosive secret letter that exposes how Tony Blair lied over the legality of the Iraq War can be revealed.

The Chilcot Inquiry into the war will interrogate the former Prime Minister over the devastating 'smoking gun' memo, which warned him in the starkest terms the war was illegal.

The Mail on Sunday can disclose that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote the letter to Mr Blair in July 2002 - a full eight months before the war - telling him that deposing Saddam Hussein was a blatant breach of international law.

It was intended to make Mr Blair call off the invasion, but he ignored it. Instead, a panicking Mr Blair issued instructions to gag Lord Goldsmith, banned him from attending Cabinet meetings and ordered a cover-up to stop the public finding out.

He even concealed the bombshell information from his own Cabinet, fearing it would spark an anti-war revolt. The only people he told were a handful of cronies who were sworn to secrecy.

Lord Goldsmith was so furious at his treatment he threatened to resign - and lost three stone as Mr Blair and his cronies bullied him into backing down.

Sources close to the peer say he was 'more or less pinned to the wall' in a Downing Street showdown with two of Mr Blair's most loyal aides, Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan.

The revelations follow a series of testimonies by key figures at the Chilcot Inquiry who have questioned Mr Blair's judgment and honesty, and the legality of the war.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that the inquiry has been given Lord Goldsmith's explosive letter, and that Mr Blair and the peer are likely to be interrogated about it when they give evidence in the New Year.

Lord Goldsmith gave qualified legal backing to the conflict days before the war broke out in March 2003 in a brief, carefully drafted statement. As The Mail on Sunday disclosed three years ago, even that was a distortion as Lord Goldsmith had told Mr Blair a week earlier he could be breaking international law.

But today's revelations show that Lord Goldsmith told Mr Blair at the outset, and in writing, that military action against Iraq was totally illegal.

Pressured: Lord Goldsmith leaves No10 in March 2003 after talks with Blair

The disclosures deal a massive blow to Mr Blair's hopes of proving he acted in good faith when he and George Bush declared war on Iraq. And they are likely to fuel further calls for Mr Blair to be charged with war crimes.

Lord Goldsmith's 'smoking gun' letter came six days after a Cabinet meeting on July 23, 2002, at which Ministers were secretly told that the US and UK were set on 'regime change' in Iraq.

The peer, who attended the meeting, was horrified. On July 29, he wrote to Mr Blair on a single side of A4 headed notepaper from his office.

Friends say it was no easy thing for him to do. He was a close friend of Mr Blair, who gave him his peerage and Cabinet post. The typed letter was addressed by hand, 'Dear Tony', and signed by hand, 'Yours, Peter'.

In it, Lord Goldsmith set out in uncompromising terms why he believed war was illegal. He pointed out that:

• War could not be justified purely on the grounds of 'regime change'.
• Although United Nations rules permitted 'military intervention on the basis of self-defence', they did not apply in this case because Britain was not under threat from Iraq.
• While the UN allowed 'humanitarian intervention' in certain instances, that too was not relevant to Iraq.
• It would be very hard to rely on earlier UN resolutions in the Nineties approving the use of force against Saddam.

Lord Goldsmith ended his letter by saying 'the situation might change' - although in legal terms, it never did.

The letter caused pandemonium in Downing Street. Mr Blair was furious. No10 told Lord Goldsmith he should never have put his views on paper, and he was not to do so again unless told to by Mr Blair.

The reason was simple: if it became public, Lord Goldsmith's letter could make it impossible for Mr Blair to fulfil his secret pledge to back Mr Bush in any circumstances. More importantly, it could never be expunged from the record as copies were stored in No10 and in the Attorney General's office.

Although Lord Goldsmith had Cabinet status, he attended meetings only when asked. After his letter, he barely attended another meeting until the eve of the war. Mr Blair kept him out to reduce the chance of him blurting out his views to other Ministers.

When Mr Blair is quizzed by the Chilcot Inquiry, he will be asked why he never admitted he was told from the start that the war was illegal.

Equally ominously for Mr Blair, a defiant Lord Goldsmith is ready to defend the letter when he appears before the inquiry. Friends of the peer, widely derided for his role in the Iraq War, believe it will vindicate him.

A source close to Lord Goldsmith said: 'He assumed, perhaps naively, that Blair wanted a proper legal assessment. No10 went berserk because they knew that once he had put it in writing, it could not be unsaid.

'They liked to do things with no note-takers, and often no officials, present. That way, there was no record. Everything could be denied.

Heavy-handed: Baroness Morgan and Lord Falconer are said to have 'more or less pinned Lord Goldsmith to the wall and told him what Blair wanted'

'Goldsmith threatened to resign at least once. He lost three stone in that period. He is an honourable man and it was a terribly stressful experience.'

Lord Goldsmith's wife Joy, a prominent figure in New Labour dining circles, played a crucial role in talking him out of quitting.

'Joy was always very ambitious on Peter's behalf and did not want to see him throw it all away,' said a source.

Lord Goldsmith's letter contradicts Mr Blair's repeated statements, before, during and after the war on its legality.

In April 2005, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman repeatedly asked him if he had seen confidential Foreign Office advice that the war would be illegal without specific UN support.

Mr Blair said: 'No. I had the Attorney General's advice to guide me.' At best, it was dissembling. At worst, it was a blatant lie.

Mr Blair knew all along that Lord Goldsmith had told him the war was illegal, and that when the peer finally gave it his cautious backing, he did so only under extreme duress.

The Mail on Sunday has also obtained new evidence about the way Lord Goldsmith was bullied into backing the war at the 11th hour.

He was summoned to a No10 meeting with Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer and Baroness Sally Morgan, Mr Blair's senior Labour 'fixer' in Downing Street. No officials were present.

A source said: 'Falconer and Morgan performed a pincer movement on Goldsmith. They more or less pinned him up against the wall and told him to do what Blair wanted.'

After the meeting, Lord Goldsmith issued his brief statement stating the war was lawful.

Lord Falconer said in response to the latest revelations: 'This version of events is totally false. The meeting was Lord Goldsmith's suggestion and he told us what his view was.'

Baroness Morgan has also denied trying to pressure Lord Goldsmith.

The legal row came to a head days before the war, when the UN refused to approve military action. Stranded, Mr Blair had to win Lord Goldsmith's legal backing, not least because British military chiefs refused to send troops into action without it.

On March 17, three days before the conflict started, Lord Goldsmith said the war was legal on the basis of previous UN resolutions threatening action against Saddam - even though in his secret letter of July 2002, he had ruled out this argument.

A spokesman for Lord Goldsmith said: 'This letter is probably in the bundle that has been supplied to the inquiry by the Attorney General's department. It is presumed they will want to discuss it with him. If so, Lord Goldsmith is content to do so.

'His focus is on the legality of the war, its morality is for others.'

A spokesman for the Chilcot Inquiry said: 'We are content we have obtained all the relevant documents.'

A spokesman for Mr Blair refused to say why the former Prime Minister had not disclosed Lord Goldsmith's July 2002 letter.

'The Attorney General set out the legal basis for action in Iraq in March 2003,' he said. 'Beyond that, we are not getting into a running commentary before Mr Blair appears in front of the Chilcot committee.'

Leading international human rights lawyer Philippe Sands said: 'The Chilcot Inquiry must make Lord Goldsmith's note of 29 July, 2002, publicly available to restore public confidence in the Government.'

 

Diary of deceit ... and how the Attorney General lost three stone

2002

April 6: Blair meets Bush at Crawford, Texas. They secretly agree 'regime change' war against Iraq.

July 23: Blair tells secret Cabinet meeting of war plan. Goldsmith is asked to check legal position.

July 24: Blair tells MPs: 'We have not got to the stage of military action...or point of decision.'

JULY 19, 2002: Lord Goldsmith photographed ten days before he tells Blair war is illegal

MARCH 20, 2003: Haggard Goldsmith arrives for War Cabinet on day Iraq is invaded

July 29: Goldsmith secretly writes to Blair to tell him war is illegal.

July 30: No10 rebukes Goldsmith. He is excluded from most War Cabinet meetings.

November 8: UN urges Saddam to disarm, but stops short of backing war.

2003

March 7: Despite duress from No10, Goldsmith tells Blair war could be unlawful.

March 13: Goldsmith is allegedly 'pinned against wall' by Blair cronies Charlie Falconer and Sally Morgan.

March 17: UN rules out backing war.

March 17: Goldsmith U-turn. In carefully worded brief 'summary', he says war is lawful.

March 20: War begins.

2005

April 21: Jeremy Paxman asks Blair if he saw Foreign Office advice saying war was illegal. Blair says: 'No. I had Lord Goldsmith's advice to guide me.'

April 24: Mail on Sunday reveals Goldsmith told Blair two weeks before war that it could be illegal.

2009

November 24: Chilcot Iraq War Inquiry begins.

Today: Mail on Sunday reveals Goldsmith's 'smoking gun' letter to Blair in July 2002.

 

Blair 'knew WMD claim was false'

By DAVID ROSE

By the time Tony Blair led Britain to attack Iraq, he had stopped believing his own lurid claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, according to an unpublished interview with the late Robin Cook, the former Leader of the Commons who resigned from the Cabinet just before the invasion in March 2003.

In the interview, which Cook gave me in 2004, the year before his death, he described Blair's actions as 'a scandalous manipulation of the British constitution', adding that if the then Prime Minister had revealed his doubts, they would have rendered the war illegal.

Cook, who was in almost daily contact with Blair in the months before his resignation, said that in September 2002, when the Government published its infamous dossier claiming Saddam had tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons and could deploy WMDs within 45 minutes, Blair did believe these claims were true. But he added:

'By February or March, he knew it was wrong. As far as I know, at no point after the end of 2002 did he ever repeat those claims.'

Tony Blair secures MPs' support for war on March 18, 2003, as Clare Short looks on. But according to Robin Cook, the PM already knew WMD claims were untrue

On March 18, Blair had to face the Commons to ask it to vote for war but he knew, Cook added, 'that if he now publicly withdrew the dossier's claims, his position would be lost'.

Therefore Blair kept silent and so secured the war resolution, though 139 Labour MPs voted against him.

Cook added that if Blair had revealed his doubts, this would also have made it impossible for Lord Goldsmith to issue the fateful legal advice that Britain's Service chiefs had been demanding: that war would be lawful.

'What I've never seen satisfactorily defended by the Government is whether that opinion still stands up if the premise on which it was based - the claims in the dossier - turn out to be false,' Cook said.

'Tony didn't focus on WMDs only for political reasons, but for legal reasons. He knew he was not going to get the Attorney General on side on any basis other than that Saddam had illegal weapons and could not be disarmed by any means other than war.'

Cook's is not the only bombshell that remains unpublished. Last week, Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, told the Chilcot Inquiry that though Blair kept insisting almost to the end that 'nothing was decided' on Iraq, his decision to support the invasion actually went back to April 2002, when he visited President Bush's Texas ranch.

However, both Meyer and other British and American officials told me in 2004 that Blair made up his mind even before April and that even then, Blair was saying in private that Britain would join the attack as long as Bush got UN backing. That meant proving Saddam had active WMDs, as the UN would not authorise an attack on any other basis.

Revelations: Sir Christopher Meyer and the late Robin Cook

Meyer told me: 'Some time during the first quarter of 2002, Blair had become resigned to war.'

Having committed himself to war, Blair believed he had to get military action approved by the UN to make the invasion legal, and to get the support of his own party back home. But leading figures close to Bush were deeply hostile to this idea, and would have much preferred to attack unilaterally.

Perhaps the most shocking disclosures concerned Blair's propensity to bend the truth. For example, on July 26, 2002, Clare Short, then International Development Secretary, asked Blair whether war was looming.

His response was that she should go on holiday untroubled, because 'nothing had been decided, and would not be over the summer'.

In fact, at that very moment, his adviser Sir David Manning was engaged in feverish diplomacy in Washington - because although Blair thought Bush had promised to go to the UN, he seemed to be changing his mind. Manning even had a personal audience with Bush.

A few days later, Bush and Blair spoke by telephone. A senior White House official who read the transcript told me: 'The way it read was that, come what may, they were going to take out the regime. I remember reading it and thinking, "OK, now I know what we're going to be doing for the next year."'

Later, both leaders would state repeatedly that they had not decided to go to war. But the official said: 'War was avoidable only if Saddam ceased to be president of Iraq. It was a done deal.'

Yet the hawkish neo-conservatives at the Pentagon were still fighting hard to avoid the UN route, which would require a narrowing of focus on to WMDs. The crunch came at a summit at Camp David on September 7, 2002, when, most unusually, not only Bush but the neo-con vice president Dick Cheney met Blair. Cheney's role, Meyer said, was solely to try to persuade Bush not to go to the UN.

In desperation, Blair, according to another White House official, told Bush and Cheney that he could be ousted at the Labour conference later that month if Bush ignored the UN. Afterwards, the official said, he and his colleagues pored over the party's constitution, discovering that it was most unlikely that this threat would materialise.

But by then it was too late: a week after the summit, Bush spoke at the UN General Assembly, and announced America would be seeking what became Resolution 1442 - the resolution that, in Lord Goldsmith's eyes, allowed British soldiers to kill Iraqis without being prosecuted for murder.

But not all who once saw Blair as a friend have forgiven him. 'Blair was absolutely the reason why we went to the UN, because it was believed that his political fortunes absolutely demanded it,' said David Wurmser, formerly Cheney's chief Middle East adviser. 'It really was a political concession to Blair - and also a disastrous misjudgment.'