Sour Grapes
Of course we're Fair and Balanced!

2005-03-25

Violation of public trust



This story, from The Guardian, is an egregious example of such violations from the UK. Not because the "attorney general still believed invasion [of Iraq] was illegal less than two weeks before the troops went in." That's an opinion that changed, for whatever reason, good or ill. But because the British government deleted this allegation from a document being released under a Freedom of Information Act request.



The government yesterday tried to suppress evidence that the attorney general believed war against Iraq was illegal less than two weeks before British troops joined the US-led invasion of the country.



It has removed a key passage in the resignation letter written by Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy chief legal adviser at the Foreign Office, on March 18 2003, the eve of the invasion.



The remainder of her letter — in which she described the planned invasion as a "crime of aggression" — was released yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act.



The entire letter would have remained secret had not the Guardian published parts of it last month, the FO [Foreign Office] said.


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