In the current issue of The American Prospect, Eric Alterman and Michael Tomasky tell journalists in America to ‘wake up’ and quit playing along with the Bush administration.
They offer four specific suggestions not only for journalists but their editors. I have one more.
Together, the new developments signal that the legal case for the allied invasion of Iraq without a specific UN instruction authorising them to do so has become the most dangerous threat to the Prime Minister and is unlikely to go away.
Kennedy’s claims, which will be made this morning in an interview on GMTV, are arguably the most damaging. Her position as a member of the highest echelons of the legal community will add credence to her claims that the British government could find only two senior lawyers in the UK prepared to back the case for the invasion.
Baroness Kennedy points out that Lord Goldsmith was a commercial lawyer with no experience of international law and initially relied heavily on the advice of lawyers within the Foreign Office in the months before the war. It is widely believed that advice overwhelmingly warned against invading without a UN resolution.
She claims that when Washington was told of this advice their response was succinct: find a new lawyer.