From Correlli Bamett
Sir: As it happened, last week's Spectator (carrying my warning that we should not fall for the Blairite attempt to persuade us to forget the Iraq war and 'move on') went to press the very day that 'the war' was spectacularly restored to the headlines by the abandonment of the government's case against Katharine Gun. So now Tony Blair and his toadies are desperately trying to shut the lid again on the potentially lethal questions of exactly when and for what real reasons he committed us to George W. Bush's Iraqi adventure. It is already clear that in this attempt they are using Clare Short as a decoy to divert public scrutiny.
Clearly, the key issue in all this is the legality of Blair's decision to launch a pre emptive war. In the aftermath of the collapse of the case against Gun — out of fear that her defence would demand disclosure of the details of Lord Goldsmith's advice — Blair and his cronies are relying on precedent for refusing to reveal the details of that advice. This is simply not good enough. We are not talking here about some run-of-the-mill domestic issue, such as, for instance, the law relating to government action in an industrial dispute. We are talking about the gravest of all national issues, the taking of the British people to war and the shedding of British blood. We therefore have a moral right, not to be denied, to know exactly what advice was tendered at different times before the war by the Attorney General — and whether or not he came under Blairite pressure to return a convenient answer.
All in all, it is now more than ever a matter of vital public interest that a searching inquiry be held into all aspects of the political and diplomatic prelude to war, and the conduct of the war itself.
Correlli Barnett
Norwich
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