More Windsor Fairy Tales

by **antiaristo** » Fri May 26, 2006 7:10 am

If you’ve been watching closely you’ll know what happened to the “inquiry” into the 7/7 London bombings that killed fifty-two human beings. We were treated to a “Security Services Narrative” instead. They told us what we should believe, without an iota of evidence. They ignored the gaping chasms in their narrative. They ignored the gross contradictions with what they said at the beginning. And the UK parliament endorsed the lies. Now they are going to do the same with the Goldsmith “opinion” on the lawful basis for the attack on Iraq. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Papers pinpoint law chief's change of heart over war David Leigh and Rob Evans Friday May 26, 2006 The Guardian The existence of documents which pinpoint the moment when the government's leading law officer changed his mind over the legality of the invasion of Iraq was disclosed yesterday. The documents record that Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, told his officials on March 13 2003 he had changed his mind "after further reflection" and accepted Washington's claim that the invasion would be legal. This latest evidence was released following an intervention by Richard Thomas, the freedom of information commissioner. Lord Goldsmith's change of heart followed a warning the previous day from the treasury solicitor, head of the government legal service, who said civil servants could not work on the invasion without clear legal authorisation. The chief of defence staff had already demanded similar legal cover for his troops. After Lord Goldsmith agreed to change his previous advice Lady Sally Morgan, a Downing Street aide, wrote an internal email saying Lord Goldsmith was now willing to "make clear in the course of the week that there is a sound legal basis for action". A short statement was then made to Parliament. But the government still refuses to publish the text of these documents, the Morgan email and the treasury solicitor's minute of his conversation with Lord Goldsmith. Mr Thomas has stepped back from a confrontation with Downing Street over a raft of freedom of information requests which were submitted to him by MPs, the media and the public a year ago as the controversy escalated. Whitehall has instead published an agreed narrative of events based on the files. Mr Thomas has allowed the government to withhold the actual text of all its documents, apart from the already-leaked text of Lord Goldsmith's original advice. That advice, on March 7, did not support the US claim that an invasion could be allowed even without a second UN resolution to authorise it. Instead, Lord Goldsmith originally advised it would be "safer" to obtain a second resolution. He was not confident a court would back an invasion otherwise. He was concerned whether existing evidence on Iraq's non-compliance was "sufficiently compelling" to be adequate. After Lord Goldsmith changed his mind, the existence of his original 13-page advice was suppressed. Tony Blair wrote Lord Goldsmith a letter at his request saying: "It is unequivocally the prime minister's view that Iraq has committed further material breaches," in developing weapons of mass destruction. This claim was later discovered to be false. In contrast to the attorney general's willingness to change his advice, the Foreign Office's deputy legal adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned in protest the day after Lord Goldsmith's statement was made to Parliament. She said the original legal opinion had been the opposite. Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said : "There is nothing here to indicate that there were any new facts or intelligence on Iraqi WMD, or any new legal arguments, to justify the attorney general's change of mind. The irresistible implication is that the change of mind was the result of political pressure." Philippe Sands QC, who in his book Lawless World said Mr Blair had promised George Bush that he would back the Iraq invasion, regardless of the legal situation, said yesterday: "It confirms the account I presented: that the attorney general changed his mind and that he did so in the absence of any new legal arguments or any new facts as to Iraq's possession of WMD."<hr></blockquote><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1783511,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/S...11,00.html</a> They are hiding something, aren’t they? I’ve written about this many times. Google Goldsmith Morgan Falconer Downing and you get a nice long list. This is what they are playing down <blockquote>Quote:<hr>No 10 talks: what Goldsmith told Iraq inquiry Richard Norton-Taylor Thursday February 24, 2005 The Guardian The difficulty of Lord Goldsmith's position stems from extracts of his evidence to Lord Butler's inquiry into the use of intelligence in the run-up to war. The attorney general told the inquiry that a statement issued in his name and used by the government in the Commons to argue that war against Iraq was lawful was in fact drawn up by two of the prime minister's closest aides - Lord Falconer, then a Home Office minister, and Lady Morgan, the prime minister's adviser responsible for relations between Whitehall and the government. The statement was in the form of a parliamentary answer written in the name of Lord Goldsmith on March 17 2003, the eve of the crucial Commons vote on the war. Lord Goldsmith also told the inquiry that he conveyed his view that military force against Iraq could be lawful without a new UN resolution at an informal meeting, apparently in Downing Street, with Lord Falconer and Lady Morgan. This is made clear from private exchanges between Lord Goldsmith and Lord Butler. They put into context the attorney's insistence yesterday that "it is nonsense to suggest that No 10 wrote the statement". The exchanges suggest that the attorney general was not comfortable in giving evidence to the inquiry. There is also more than a hint of impatience on the part of Lord Butler. The attorney general was reluctant to give evidence about his legal advice to the Butler committee. When he suggested he could not show it his last known written legal opinion - the advice of March 7, which said that Britain could lose a case in an international court if it invaded Iraq - the five-member Butler committee threatened to abandon its inquiry, and said it would publicly announce its reasons for doing so. The exchanges help to explain the concern expressed by the Butler committee in its final report about the style of government under Tony Blair. "We are concerned that the informality and circumscribed character of the government's procedures which we saw in the context of policy making towards Iraq risks reducing the scope for informed collective political judgment," it said. The exchanges also appear to confirm that the attorney general did not give any further formal advice after the March 13 meeting, even though his March 17 parliamentary answer was presented by the government to the Commons the following day as the attorney's formal legal "opinion". Lord Goldsmith did not demur when Lord Butler says the attorney general "didn't give further formal advice on Iraq". Asked whether he conveyed his view to the government that it was lawful to use force without a further resolution. the attorney general replied: "I conveyed that view in the first place in a meeting on that day on March 13 with Baroness Morgan and Lord Falconer, at which I informed them that I had formed the view that the interpretation of Resolution 1441 was that it was lawful to use force without a further resolution." He said he did not know whether his discussions were formally minuted, saying only: "I can't say... I do not know what minutes No 10 may have of it." He added: "They shortly, of course, set out my view in the PQ which was published on the following Monday. That set out what my view was, of course." In her letter of resignation before the war, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, is understood to have referred to the previous unanimous view in the FO, originally shared by Lord Goldsmith, that war without a new UN resolution would be illegal. After Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and the attorney general changed their view, Ms Wilmshurst wrote: "I cannot in conscience go along with advice within the Office or to the public or parliament which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a [UN] resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression; nor can I agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law". What the inquiry heard Lord Butler: Well may I in that case just start with some of the factual questions I think we can dispose of fairly easily. You told us that, or at least your secretary told us in a covering letter, that on March 13 your view as it were became clearer following the legal advice. You concluded that the better interpretation of Resolution 1441 was that it was lawful to use force without a further resolution. I think you didn't give further formal advice on Iraq. Could you tell us if you gave that view to the government? Attorney general: I conveyed that view in the first place in a meeting on that day on March 13 with Baroness Morgan and Lord Falconer, at which I informed them that I had formed the view that the interpretation of Resolution 1441 was that it was lawful to use force without a further resolution. Lord Butler: Was that formally minuted do you know? Attorney General: I can't say. I do not know what minutes Number 10 may have of it. They shortly, of course, set out my view in the PQ which was published on the following Monday. That set out what my view was of course.<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1424035,00.html">politics.guardian.co.uk/i...35,00.html</a> What are they hiding? They are hiding the fact that the "opinion" published in parliament on 17 March was not written by Goldsmith at all. It was written by some combination of Baroness Sally Morgan and Lord Charles Falconer. The judgement was taken out of the hands of the attorney general by those two. It was issued in the name of the attorney general by those two. Goldsmith had been silenced by the Treason Felony Act, invoked by Morgan and/or Falconer at Downing Street on 13 March 2003. When called on later that day (17 March) to speak in the Lords he could do no other than adopt that statement as his own. To do otherwise would put him in breach of the Treason Felony Act. He would be finished. That's how Britain went to war: On the say so of Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Elizabeth alone. Three months later Falconer was promoted from a junior position in the Home Office to the most powerful bureaucratic perch in the land - the Lord Chancellorship. Ten months earlier Morgan had attended the "Downing Street Minutes" meeting where Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, reported that "the facts were being fixed around the policy". There is but one person who bears responsibility for all the killing done by the British in Iraq. That person is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antiaristo>antiaristo</A> at: 5/26/06 5:12 am

by **Byrne** » Fri May 26, 2006 8:55 am

Anti, From <a href="http://www.ico.gov.uk/eventual.aspx?id=17868" target="top">www.ico.gov.uk/eventual.aspx?id=17868</a> Enforcement Notices An Enforcement Notice is a legal order the Information Commissioner can make to require a public authority to address its failure to comply with Part 1 of the Freedom of Information Act. In practice, this is likely to be used where there is systemic or repeated non-compliance. The notice will say what the public authority has failed to do and set out the Commissioner's reasons for reaching that conclusion. The notice will specify what steps the public authority needs to take in order to comply with the Act and a timescale for doing so. Failure to comply with an Enforcement Notice may result in the Commissioner referring the matter to the High Court. The High Court can deal with the public authority as if it had committed contempt of court. A public authority may appeal against an Enforcement Notice to the Information Tribunal. Information Commissioner issues Enforcement Notice concerning information on the legality of military intervention in Iraq Date: 22/05/06 Public Authority: Legal Secretarial to the Law Officers Summary: The Information Commissioner has served a single Enforcement Notice to resolve the issues arising from a number of similar complaints relating to disclosure of advice given by the Attorney General on the legality of military intervention in Iraq in 2003. <a href="http://www.ico.gov.uk/cms/DocumentUploads/Enforcment_Notice_22nd_May_2006.pdf" target="top">Full transcript of Enforcement Notice 22/05/06</a> <a href="http://www.ico.gov.uk/cms/DocumentUploads/Appendix_6_Disclosure_Statement.pdf" target="top">Appendix 6 Disclosure Statement</a> <a href="http://www.ico.gov.uk/cms/DocumentUploads/Annex_A%20_AG_s_Advice_7_3_03.pdf" target="top">Annex A Attorney General's Advice 07/03/03</a> <a href="http://www.ico.gov.uk/cms/DocumentUploads/Annex%20_B_Statement_by_the_Attorney%20_General_17_3_031.pdf" target="top">Annex B Statement by the Attorney General 17/3/03</a> <a href="http://www.ico.gov.uk/cms/DocumentUploads/Annex_C_Memorandum_by_the_Foreign_and_Commonwealth%20_Office.pdf" target="top">Annex C Memorandum by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office</a>

by **antiaristo** » Fri May 26, 2006 10:29 am

Byrne, It's another snow job. Complete and utter bollocks. I know it looks impressive, but it is completely meaningless. That's why it's framed in such macho terms. An ENFORCEMENT NOTICE! WOO WOO! Stripped of all the legal flim-flam the lawyers are using to hoodwink us, they are saying: "This is what happened. But we're not going to let you see the proof." Telling us they can't ALL be lying, so it must be true. Were it a lie, they can't ALL be lying to support it. But they CAN all be lying to us. They ARE all lying to us. What they ALL have in common is an oath to obey Queen Elizabeth. And that's backed by the law of the land, the Treason Felony Act. What if she has "let it be known" that it is against her interests for the people to know she was personally responsible for the deceits that took the country to war? WHO will oppose ("put any force or constraint upon") her??? So far as the bureaucracy is concerned they are UPHOLDING THE LAW when promoting the dissemination of untruths to the general public.

More Windsor Fairy Tales

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