READING: Sands, Torture Team

Philippe Sands
Torture Team
2008

FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair was advised that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal just hours before former US president George Bush presented him with his timetable for war.

This was the central claim put forward by leading British QC Philippe Sands when he came to Edinburgh to promote his latest book Torture Team.

Professor Sands pointed to documents uploaded online by The Iraq Inquiry which lay bare the claims he made in his earlier book Lawless World (2005), specifically that attorney general Lord Goldsmith was leaned on by the government to change his views on the legality of a war with Iraq.

He pointed to a memo drawn up by Lord Goldsmith on the eve of Blair’s meeting with Bush on 31 January 2003 – available here – in which Goldsmith categorically stated that UN resolution 1441, which offered Saddam a final chance to disarm his weapons, “does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council”.

The existence of this memo has been known about for over five years, but Sands was particularly excited by the release of a new annotated version on The Iraq Inquiry website earlier this year which includes new and, Sands argues, damning notes by Tony Blair and his private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft.

Prof Sands even suggested that Blair thought Lord Goldsmith was “a tosser” for writing this memo on the eve of such an important meeting.

Sands told the audience at Edinburgh Book Festival: “If you go on The Iraq Inquiry website and have a look at the declassified documents available on the site there’s a memo from attorney general Lord Goldsmith dated 30 January 2003. The memo states:

'In view of your meeting with President Bush on Friday, I thought you might wish to know where I stand on the question of whether a further decision of the Security Council is legally required in order to authorise the use of force against Iraq...

'You should be aware that, notwithstanding the additional arguments put to me since our last discussion, I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council.'

Sands went on: “Mischievously, and wonderfully, the Chilcot Inquiry didn’t put up the original copy – it put up the annotated Number 10 copy. In the top left hand corner someone has scribbled:

‘Clear advice from attorney on need for another resolution.’

“However, next to that is another note, by Tony Blair’s private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft, which reads:

‘[We] specifically said we did not need further advice this week, Matthew.’

“At the bottom of the memo Goldsmith concludes: ‘I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of force without a further determination by the security council.’

“This phrase has been underlined and next to it, scribbled in Tony Blair's handwriting, is written: ‘I just don’t understand this.’

Sands continued: “In other words, Tony Blair is saying ‘I just don’t understand why this tosser is putting out advice saying that the war is illegal’.



“And what happened the next day? Blair’s chief foreign policy advisor [later US Ambassador] David Manning recorded a meeting between Bush and Blair which said that America was preparing for war. The advice is right there at the bottom of Manning’s Memo:

‘The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin.’

“It was made clear that he was doing this with or without another resolution and Blair told Bush that he was ‘solidly behind him’" Sands continued. "Bush added that it would be good if another resolution could be achieved but only as an insurance policy.”

Sands is much more engaging in person than his writing, which is unfortunately but necessarily dry and methodical. However, his style compliments the sterile language of the memos he describes in which US defence chiefs such as Donald Rumsfeld and William Haynes discuss the degrading and inhumane treatments they were meting out to terror suspects.

He is the first to admit that he is no journalist, and is more at home wading through papers than navigating emotive prose. However, for Torture Team he had to learn the skills of a journalist as most of the evidence he needed for his exposé of the US government’s sanctioning of torture techniques in the wake of 9/11 was very deliberately not written down.

“I think many of the people I spoke to for the book met with me precisely because I wasn’t a journalist,” said Sands.

However, Sands’ paper chase to discover who-knew-what-and-when, and his pursuit of key witnesses to corroborate his assertions, would make even Woodward and Bernstein proud.