Blair Faces Furor Before Election

Prime Minister Tony Blair, trying to defuse a row over Iraq a week before Britain's general election, released his attorney general's advice on the legality of the U.S.-led war on Thursday — something he had long refused to do.

The announcement came after a TV channel said it had obtained a leaked copy of a memo sent to Blair from Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in which he warned the invasion could be deemed illegal without a second U.N. Security Council resolution specifically authorizing military action.

The document again thrust the ferocious debate about the U.S.-led invasion and Blair's integrity to the forefront of the election campaign. Blair accused the Conservatives of trying to deflect attention away from issues like the economy, health and education.

He also insisted he did not lie about the legal case for war in Iraq, but the opposition Conservative Party said the document proved he did.

The full text of the memo, which had been leaked to Channel 4 news, was released on the prime minister's Web site.

"You have probably got it all anyway. I see no reason not to publish it," Blair told reporters.

The prime minister has insisted that Goldsmith, the government's top legal adviser, was unequivocal in written advice to Parliament on March 17, 2003, that invading Iraq would be legal without a further U.N. resolution.

But in Goldsmith's confidential memo to Blair, written 10 days earlier, the attorney general warned that an invasion could be deemed illegal without a new resolution.

"The key thing was the attorney general advising it was lawful to proceed," Blair said. "This so-called smoking gun has turned out to be a damp squib, because he did advise it was lawful to proceed."

But Conservative leader Michael Howard, who has branded Blair as a liar, said the document reinforced doubts about Blair's integrity.

"If you can't trust Mr. Blair on the decision to take the country to war, the most important decision a prime minister can take, how can you trust Mr. Blair on anything else ever again?" Howard told journalists.