Iraq war criticism continues

Legal challenges, outspoken ex-ministers and the public acquittal of a whistleblowing spy helped to keep alive yesterday accusations that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government misled Britons over the reasons for going to war in Iraq last year.

A legal challenge from environmental group Greenpeace demanding to see what advice Britain's Attorney General gave government ministers on the legality of the war is the latest headache for a government keen to put the war behind it.

Greenpeace says the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the Iraq war to ministers is essential evidence needed to defend 14 of its activists arrested at an anti-war protest and charged with aggravated trespass.

"Throughout their case the defendants have argued that their actions were necessary to prevent loss of life," a spokeswoman for Greenpeace said.

Greenpeace's demands appear only days after charges against former British intelligence officer Katharine Gun for revealing official secrets were dropped when her lawyers said they needed to see the Attorney General's advice. Gun's lawyers had argued that she was acting to save lives in an illegal war.

"With the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) now saying they could not have disproved such a defence in the Gun case, Greenpeace lawyers wonder how the CPS will proceed against the 14," the spokeswoman said.

Attorney General Lord Goldsmith denied the case against Gun was dropped because the former spy demanded to see his legal advice to ministers on the Iraq war.

The British government has said releasing the Attorney General's full advice would go against legal precedent and is expected to refuse to disclose it.

However a former minister, who accused the Blair government this week of bugging the secretary-general of the United Nations in the run-up to the war in Iraq, yesterday said she thought the Attorney General had offered his advice under duress.

"There is no doubt that the way in which a truncated opinion authorising war appeared at the very last minute was very odd," former international affairs minister Clare Short wrote in The Independent newspaper.

Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix also fanned the flames of debate surrounding the British and US governments by telling Britain's Guardian newspaper that he thought he had been spied on by the United States.