“The unsatisfactory nature of events is illustrated by the fact that the guardian of that code is the Prime Minister himself,” said Campbell.

CAIRO, March 9, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – British Members of Parliament have called for a formal inquiry into why Prime Minister Tony Blair and Attorney General Lord Golsmith concealed a full legal opinion before Britain joined the US in its “illegal” war on Iraq, a British daily reported Wednesday, March 9.

“I am afraid that it is now clear to me that by failing to reveal your full legal advice and the considerations that underpinned your final advice, you misled the Cabinet and therefore helped obtain support for military action improperly,” MP and former cabinet minister Clare Short said in a letter to Blair and Smith seen by The Independent.

If the probe proved that they had misled the cabinet, both Blair and Goldsmith would be held accountable for flouting the Ministerial Code of Conduct, which obliges the premier and his ministers to show full legal advice from the Attorney General relating to a specific issue to each member of the cabinet.

“When advice from the Law Officers is included in correspondence between Ministers, or in papers for the Cabinet or Ministerial Committees,” the code says, “the conclusions may if necessary be summarized but, if this is done, the complete text of the advice should be attached.”

Politicians from all parties seized on a written statement from Blair as an admission that cabinet ministers should have been given Goldsmith’s full legal opinion before Britain went to war.

“On the face of it, the Prime Minister was in breach of the ministerial code. The unsatisfactory nature of events is illustrated by the fact that the guardian of that code is the Prime Minister himself,” Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, was quoted as saying by the British daily.

• Click Here to Read the Independent Article in Full

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