Blair: Resolution 'gave green light'
Updated on 29 January 2010
The former prime minister Tony Blair has told the Iraq inquiry that UN resolution 1441 gave the US and Britain the legal authority they needed to invade.
Mr Blair said that in the months leading up to the war, the attorney general Lord Goldsmith and lawyers at the Foreign Office had advised that 1441, which called on Saddam Hussein to disarm, was not enough to justify military action and a second resolution was needed.
He said: "What I took from the advice was that we needed another UN resolution."
He added it was important to consider what was in the minds of the people who had agreed 1441 in November 2002, that there had to be full compliance by Saddam or this would constitute "a material breach".
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Mr Blair agreed that on 7 March 2003, three weeks before the war started, Lord Goldsmith was still arguing that a second resolution was needed.
But by 13 March, he had changed his mind and concluded there was a legal basis for military action.
Blair said: "He came to the view that on balance the breach by Saddam Hussein of 1441 was sufficient."
Had he not done so, "we would have been unable to take action. A lot hung on that decision. Therefore it was important that it was by the Attorney General and done in a way which we were satisfied was right and correct".
The former Prime Minister said the essence of 1441 was that "if he (Saddam) doesn't take that chance and he starts messing around again, then that's it".
But he explained that in a conversation with George Bush in October 2002, he had told the President: "If he complies, then that's it."
Referring to Lord Goldsmith's advice, Mr Blair said in the build-up the war, he needed to know he was acting legally. "If you read the words of 1441, it's pretty clear this was Saddam's last chance."
He said he was aware, as a lawyer himself, that "there always was a case either way".
