Peter Goldsmith was right

The Independent, the Guardian and the Daily Mail still* disagree with the Iraq war. This is, apparently, news.

The documents published by the Iraq Inquiry yesterday are, indeed, new. Their content – the fact that Peter Goldsmith, the Attorney General (right), was briefly of the opinion that the invasion would be unlawful even after UN Resolution 1441 – was not.

To sum up: Goldsmith changed his mind from a position that was wrong, which was that Operation Desert Fox (the bombing of Iraq in 1998) was “unlawful”, to a position that was right. And so it has proved to be. In the seven years since the invasion there have been no prosecutions and the few attempts to launch them have been dismissed at the earliest possible stages.

*In the Daily Mail’s case, it was equivocal at the time but afterwards dislike of Tony Blair and New Labour quickly overcame what passes for principle.

Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

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• JohnBEllis

  You might have persuaded your sub-editor to select, from your point of view, a headline that didn’t look like a neat skit on your argument – i.e. that didn’t provoke the irresistable question: “On which occasion?”!And you’re far too sharp and subtle a character not to be aware that, against the fuzzy background of international law, it’s only the losers and the small people that are ever arraigned, and never the victors and the powerful.

• http://bensix.wordpress.com/ BenSix

  And so it has proved to be. In the seven years since the invasion there have been no prosecutions and the few attempts to launch them have been dismissed at the earliest possible stages.

  Clearly, then, Ahmedinejad didn’t steal the election (after all, he’s never been tried for it); Mugabe isn’t a killer (or why would has the UN not charged him?), and Henry Kissinger isn’t a war criminal…I suppose you might believe the latter, John.

• scampy1

  If the international criminal court is to have any real meaning Blair must be put on trial at the Hague.If he is innocent what does he fear in clearing his name?