SIR ANDREW TURNBULL, KCB, CVO

4 MARCH 2004

  Q100 Kevin Brennan: So, you were allowed to make all the preparations that were involved and spend money on sending the troops.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: Yes.

  Q101 Kevin Brennan: But actually it is not really until the final moment that you were able to give the voucher and say, "We can sign this off as being okay."

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: I think there is a difference between readiness which is done under prerogative powers—and I can use that here since you are very interested in that—and there is a dividing line between . . .

  Q102 Kevin Brennan: Did at any point the word come through, "Actually, what we are proposing might be illegal" before you got the final sign-off that it was okay?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: No. This was a moving situation because, for a long time, we were thinking that this might have been authorised by a specific UN resolution, in which case it would have been clear cut, and it was only when it became apparent that that UN resolution was not going to be forthcoming that advice was needed on whether, despite the absence of this second resolution, it was nevertheless still legal and that is what we were advised.

  Q103 Kevin Brennan: In terms of all this debate about the legal advice and so on, really it is academic because, at the end of the day, as long as the Attorney General said it was legal, it is legal.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: He is the Government's legal adviser.

  Q104 Kevin Brennan: It does not matter what anyone else says, you are in the clear.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: He is paid to give his legal advice.

  Q105 Kevin Brennan: And, providing at the end he said that, it does not matter what he said along the way when people are asking for the legal advice and so on.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: He set out the short form which was the unequivocal position.

  Q106 Kevin Brennan: How much longer is the long form, without telling us what it is in it?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: I do not think I am going to get drawn on that. It is longer!

  Q107 Kevin Brennan: A lot longer?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: No. I do not think this is a productive line of questioning.

  Q108 Kevin Brennan: You are not revealing any state secrets in that sense, are you?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: I might be.

  Q109 Kevin Brennan: The short form was two sides of A4 but presumably there was a lengthy considered document.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: Yes, which set out the logic and the reasoning and how he eventually came to a conclusion and he wrote up the conclusion and, since that was his final view, he maintains that you do not need to know more than that because that tells you what his conclusion was.

  Kevin Brennan: That was the tip of the iceberg, really.

  Q110 Mr Hopkins: What we want to know is what the debate was like before and what the previous documents, his first draft, second draft, third draft and fourth draft were like.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: I was not privy to the full kind of development because this was against a moving target. A lot of the time, it had been written against the possibility of a second resolution.

  Q111 Kevin Brennan: That is true and we are all intimately aware of that, but we also knew for some time in advance of that, from the time that 1441 was passed at the UN, that it was possible that we might get to the point where we had marched them up to the top of the hill and the UN, despite the intense efforts of the Prime Minister and others, were not going to possibly pass a second resolution. So, was this issue not really being sorted at an earlier stage just in case that did not come through? We were not putting all our eggs in the second resolution basket, were we?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: We worked very hard to get it and worked on the assumption that we probably would. There were intense negotiations.

  Q112 Kevin Brennan: Did you have plan B prepared through that period just in case?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: I am not aware of a plan B. I saw that what I required was that, in the situation we were in where we could go to war within a week, I could assure that the people working in the Civil Service in the same way as Sir Michael Boyce could do for the Armed Forces that what I was being asked to do was legal.

  Q113 Mr Heyes: I want to take us back to the Short letter again. You have led us to believe that you were acting as the Prime Minister's agent in this and that the action you took was with his prior knowledge and consent. I cannot reconcile that with the reports in the press on Monday. The Guardian, for example, speaks fairly authoritatively about Government sources insisting that Sir Andrew decided on his own initiative to reprimand Ms Short and they go on to say that the sources made clear that no pressure had been placed on Sir Andrew by Tony Blair. Whoever was briefing in the aftermath of Sunday's revelation of the letter is contradicting what you have said to us in your evidence.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: I make it absolutely clear that no pressure was put on me to produce this. This came out from my side of the door. It was a suggestion of officials and me in particular and that was agreed with him. I think that is consistent with what The Guardian is saying. I do not know whether you rely on The Guardian anyway!

  Q114 Mr Heyes: It is difficult on this Committee to know whom to rely on! Those words are chosen fairly carefully and maybe The Guardian will go back to their sources and check it out. Can I just try a slightly different tack which is going back to the point that Kevin raised about the Government's legal advice. It is the case that the Government were casting around for legal advice until they received the opinion that they wanted to hear, is it not?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: No. The Attorney General has given his opinion. I cannot say that there were other alternatives. What I rely on is that he has given his opinion and has partly—

  Q115 Mr Heyes: To test my assertion, were different opinions available? Were different opinions considered at any point in the process?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: He is the Government's legal adviser and he sets out the arguments and then he comes to a conclusion, and that is what he did.

  Q116 Mr Heyes: Were different opinions available and considered as part of the process?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: No. We relied on his opinion.

  Q117 Mr Heyes: Let me try again. Were other opinions available and considered as part of the process?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: No. He is the Government's legal adviser and he was asked for an opinion, he gave that opinion and that is what we relied on.

  Q118 Mr Heyes: Was that the only opinion that was made available for consideration?

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: That was what we relied on which was his opinion.

  Mr Heyes: I think it would be out of order to ask you the question a fifth time.

  Q119 Chairman: He is not an international lawyer, he is a commercial lawyer, is he not? So, he has to go off and get the opinion of somebody else. Presumably, knowing what the Government wanted to do, he went around until he received an opinion that stood up.

  Sir Andrew Turnbull: The answer is that I do not know how he constructed his opinion. I rely on the result of his work. Who he consulted is not known to me. He produces an opinion and he produced what was required. The various authorities that he consulted I am not in a position to second guess. He may have consulted all sorts of people but his role is to come in the end, having done all the research, to a view. I do not know who his various sources were.