LONDON, July 20 (AFP) - Britain`s top legal adviser, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, said Tuesday the Iraq war was still lawful despite a British inquiry last week slamming the intelligence used to back the US-led invasion.
"I believed the war was lawful and I still do," Goldsmith said in an interview with the Independent newspaper.
An inquiry report published last week, which exposed "serious flaws" in Britain`s pre-war intelligence on Iraq, vindicated his decision to give Prime Minister Tony Blair the green light to go to war, Goldsmith said.
"(The inquiry) has confirmed that (my advice) was based on the repeated defiance of Saddam Hussein of (UN) resolution 1441 and his failure to take the final opportunity that was given to him by 1441," he said.
Blair argued before the war that Saddam Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) made the Iraqi leader an immediate threat and that he had to be removed, but no such weapons have been found in the 15 months since Baghdad fell.
On Wednesday, an official report into pre-war intelligence on Iraq`s WMDs concluded that Britain`s spy agencies got their facts badly wrong over the danger posed by Saddam.
However the inquiry, led by former top civil servant Lord Butler, characterised any failings as institutional and absolved Blair and his government of deliberate wrongdoing.
Goldsmith fought off allegations that he had been leant on to produce advice favourable to the wishes of government.
"My view on the legality (of the Iraq war) which I gave to parliament was my independent view and not the result in any way of pressure from anyone, as one or two people have suggested," he said. "That`s not the way I operate and that`s not the way the government operates in relation to the law."
Goldsmith also defended Blair`s decision not to publish the advice given to the government.
"We don`t want governments being frightened of asking for advice and giving the full facts on decisions that have to be made," he said.