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.

Despite the argument about the legal advice, Howard affirmed that he thought it was right to go to war in Iraq because of Saddam Hussein's breaches of a succession of U.N. resolutions.

Political opponents have questioned whether Goldsmith was pressured by Blair's office to change his mind in the final tense days leading up to the war.

"Mr. Blair has said that the attorney general's advice to the Cabinet on the 17th March was 'very clear' that the war was legal, and that the attorney general had not changed his mind," Howard told a news conference in London. "It is obvious that he did. So what the public must now have an answer to is this: what, or who, changed the attorney general's mind?"

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw insisted Goldsmith had "never changed his mind."

He said Goldsmith had simply been able to form a firmer opinion as circumstances had changed during the 10-day period: weapons inspectors had reported Iraq's failure to comply, France had made it clear it would not back a second resolution and Goldsmith had received "clear and strong factual evidence" that Iraq was in breach of its obligations.

Straw confirmed that "factual evidence" was given by Blair himself.

The continuing furor over the Iraq war is potentially damaging for the prime minister ahead of the May 5 election. Blair wants to focus electors' attention on the country's strong economy and his plans to reform public services. But the Conservatives are trying to cut his lead in opinion polls by raising doubts about his credibility and trustworthiness.

With a week to go to election day, however, polls show Labour with a healthy lead.

A survey conducted by pollster ICM for Thursday's edition of The Guardian newspaper put Labour support at 40 percent, with the Conservatives at 33 percent and the Liberal Democrats at 20 percent. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.