War in our time

Jon Snow, waving some pieces of paper, for all the world like Neville Chamberlain - at last the legal advice on the war in Iraq, in full. It turns out to be part of a summary of the advice given on 7 March 2003.

27. In these circumstances, I remain of the opinion that the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of force. [...] The key point is that it should establish that the Council has concluded that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity offered by resolution 1441, as in the draft which has already been tabled.

No great surprises there. (Update: the full advice is here. )

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Menzies Campbell again on Iraq: if Blix's inspections had continued, they might have proved that Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. He would then have been fatally weakened - liable to overthrow from inside or outside. But he would still have retained sufficient instruments of internal repression, even without the threat of using chemical weapons on his own people. As for him being overthrown by a neighbour, do we really think that letting Iran, say, do it would have been a better outcome?