Lord Goldsmith's advice is devastating in three respects

First is the admission that "on a number of previous occasions" Britain has undertaken military action "on the basis of advice... that the legality of the action under international law was no more than reasonably arguable" (para 30). My research is that the invasion of Iraq was Blair's seventh violation of international law, the others being: bombing Yugoslavia and Afghanistan without UN authorisation; violating international humanitarian law in the attacks on Yugoslavia; bombing Iraq in December 1998; maintaining "no-fly zones" over Iraq without UN authorisation; and maintaining sanctions against Iraq (originally imposed by the UN but maintained only by the US and UK and argued by many international lawyers to contravene UN humanitarian provisions in their devastating effects).

Second, to me Goldsmith's March 7th reasoning shows the war was understood to be illegal, irrespective of the later "change of mind". The advice states that the argument that resolution 1441 revives the authorisation of force in resolution 678 "will only be sustainable if there are strong factual grounds" for proving Iraq's non-compliance (para 29). The next sentence gives the game away by stating that "in the light of the latest reporting by UNMOVIC, you will need to consider extremely carefully whether the evidence of non-cooperation... is sufficiently compelling". The UN was saying that Iraq was indeed cooperating, something which the government well knew.

Third, Goldsmith's advice states that the UK's position is that only the Security Council, and no-one else, can decide if Iraq was in material breach of resolution 1441. We know that 1441 provided no automatic trigger since Tony Blair's statement on resolution 1441 on 8 November 2002 stated: "To those who fear this resolution is just an automatic trigger point, without any further discussion, paragraph 12 of the resolution makes clear this is not the case".

What has happened is the capture of the state's legal powers by the government, something which only tends to occur in totalitarian regimes. Watching TV coverage on several channels yesterday, one can only wonder at the complicity of the media in managing to avoid asking any - as far as I could tell - of the most important questions and putting to ministers any of the most important facts and pieces of evidence that have already emerged over many months. The constant repetition of Blair's comments that have been shown to be proven falsehoods - without any critical comment, or any comment whatsoever - are part of the process. An example is the airplay given to the Blair lie that France vetoed the chance of the second resolution. The episode shows that media reporting is seen simply as a political game - of catching out a minister on minor issues, excluding known facts, giving airplay to absurdities, and providing criticism without narrow parameters - parameters which, at this election time, are set by the 3 main parties. The media in my view have in effect kept Blair in power.