Ministers braced for hard time at Iraq Inquiry

Ministers are bracing themselves for a tough week at the Iraq Inquiry, culminating in the grilling of Tony Blair over whether he misled Parliament to take Britain into war.

Press reports suggest that two of the Government’s most senior legal advisers at the time of the 2003 invasion will tell inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot that they believed it was unlawful without a second United Nations resolution.

And former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith will later face questioning over claims he changed his mind about the legality of war.

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Their evidence on Tuesday and Wednesday will set the scene for the eagerly-awaited appearance on Friday of Mr Blair, who faces six hours of questioning over his secret discussions with United States President George Bush, his involvement in the preparation of controversial dossiers on the threat from Iraq and his decision to commit British troops.

As Mr Blair arrives at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, a delegation of protesters plan to give a “people’s dossier” of questions to Chilcot.

Among the audience for his hearing will be parents of some of 179 British personnel who died in Iraq.

Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon died aged 19, said the families would not attempt to disrupt Mr Blair’s evidence. “There will be a lot of tension, and a lot of families will feel quite unsettled,” she said. “They will be listening and taking things in. They are not going down to cause any disruption, they actually want to hear what’s being said.

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“We want the truth about why we did go into Iraq. I think Tony Blair has just convinced himself, but now he has to convince the public and convince the families about why he did go in.”

Mr Blair’s hearing will provide an unwelcome distraction for the Government as it tries to prepare for the General Election.

Mr Brown may face questions at his regular Downing Street Press conference today on a war which Foreign Secretary David Miliband yesterday acknowledged remains “divisive in all sections of British society”.

Mr Miliband admitted that planning for the aftermath of war was not good enough, but insisted that the Government had learnt lessons from what went wrong.

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Appearing on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show, he shrugged off suggestions that one of the messages emerging from the Chilcot Inquiry was that his department’s accurate predictions about the problems of occupying Iraq had been overlooked by the rest of Government.

“It is tempting to say that the Foreign Office always gets it right, but it’s not true,” he said. “It is a corporate decision.”

Sir Michael Wood, who was the Foreign Office’s chief legal adviser in the run-up to war, is expected to reveal tomorrow that he believed the invasion was unlawful without a second United Nations resolution.

And his former deputy Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who quit in protest at the invasion, will also tell the inquiry that she was not “a voice in the wilderness” at the FCO in harbouring doubts over the legitimacy of military action.

The Chilcot Inquiry today will focus on Britain’s stewardship of Basra and the south of Iraq in the aftermath of the war.