Never ever trust Straw

As the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war gets stuck in to a mass of documents, it will have the opportunity to compare what ministers said about them while they remained secret with what they really say. On many occasions, the leaking or publication of papers has shown that ministers lied.

I've just come across what Jack Straw said when the remainder of Elizabeth Wilmshurst's resignation letter was leaked. She was the Foreign Office legal adviser who resigned when attorney general Lord Goldsmith changed his mind - allegedly for a second time - to give unequivocal legal backing for the war.

In the Commons, Straw was challenged by Tory Dominic Grieve over the new part of Wilmshurst's letter that appeared to most people to show that Goldsmith had changed his view.

The view expressed in that letter [of 7 March] has of course changed again into what is now the official line.

Straw was having none of it. In the Commons - where ministers are supposed not to lie - he said:

The hon. Gentleman then made a wholly tendentious claim based on his reading of Ms Wilmshurst's letter. He said that it showed clearly that the Attorney-General had one view on 7 March and a different view later. He asked what change of law or fact had taken place. The letter showed nothing of the kind...

Goldsmith's advice of 7 March was leaked and then published in full soon afterwards and, as everyone now knows, it was different from his later advice. In fact, the government
then published an account of how Goldsmith came to change his mind.

On 13 March the Attorney General discussed the matter with his Legal Secretary. ... As the Legal Secretary recorded at the time, the Attorney confirmed in that discussion that, after further reflection, having particular regard to the negotiating history of resolution 1441 and his discussions with Sir Jeremy Greenstock and the representatives of the US Administration, he had reached the clear conclusion that the better view was that there was a lawful basis for the use of force without a second resolution.

Straw being Straw, he would probably claim that even this does not mean that the "conclusion" that Goldsmith had "reached" was any different from what he had thought before. But that's why no-one should ever, ever trust anything that Straw says.