UK not to disclose key war report


Saturday 28 February 2004, 23:26 Makka Time, 20:26 GMT


The UK government says it is not obliged to publish the report


The British government has said it would not disclose a key report on
the legality of the Iraq war, as requested by the opposition and
anti-war activists.


Government officials refused to release the report on Saturday citing
a "long-standing convention that advice to governments in office is
not disclosed".

The announcement came shortly after Greenpeace asked for the
confidential report by Attorney General Peter Goldsmith to be
published.

Fourteen activists from the environmental organisation are due to go
on trial next month for actions opposing the war and Goldsmith's
report could be vital for their defence.

"We have written to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) asking it for
the attorney general's full advice to the government on the legality
of the war," said a spokesman for Greenpeace.

"We have given the CPS 24 hours to produce the full advice. Otherwise
we will renew the request for the advice in court on the first day of
the trial, set for March 9."

Greenpeace said lawyers for the activists - who are due to go on trial
for illegally entering a British military base in February last year,
in the run-up to the war - would prove their protest was justified by
the need to avoid loss of life in Iraq.

'Confidential advice'

But a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair later said: "The
attorney general's advice remains confidential because of the
long-standing convention that advice to governments in office is not
disclosed."


UK officials have been accused of
eavesdropping on UN officials


Greenpeace's request comes only days after charges of breaching the
Official Secrets Act were dropped against a British intelligence
translator who leaked plans of an apparent United States "dirty
tricks" campaign targeting United Nations Security Council members in
the run-up to the Iraq war.

Katharine Gun walked free on Wednesday after prosecutors said -
without elaborating - that they would be offering no evidence against
her.

Gun, a Chinese speaker sacked in June from her job at the Government
Communications Headquarters, was charged in November under the
Official Secrets Act 1989 of disclosing security and intelligence
information.

She could have faced two years in prison.

Analysts said Blair's government may have feared that a public trial
would have led to the publication of potentially embarrassing
documents such as Goldsmith's confidential advice on the legality of
the Iraq war.

Angry reaction

Blair reacted angrily on Thursday when Clare Short, Britain's former
international development secretary, alleged that British intelligence
agents had eavesdropped on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's
conversations and that she had seen the transcripts.

Blair called Short's allegation "deeply irresponsible" and insisted
that British intelligence agents always acted within the law.


Blair called Clair Short's charge
"deeply irresponsible"


Since Short's statements, opposition leaders have asked Blair to come
clean on the spying allegations and called for Goldsmith's advice to
be published in full.

So far only his conclusion that the war was legal even though the
United Nations had not given the green light has been published.

'Vital argument'

On Saturday, senior lawyer Lord Alexander de Weedon said publication
of Goldsmith's argument was vital because it had allowed Britain to
enter the war along with the United States in March last year.

De Weedon told BBC Radio 4's Today programme Goldsmith's advice was
"the most important legal opinion of the last 50 years".

"Without it the war would not have gone ahead and 20,000 Iraqis would
not have been killed.

"If there are good reasons it may restore some confidence (in the
government)," he said. "If there are bad reasons it is important they
should be confirmed."