Law lord attacks 'totalitarian' Bush regime

Joshua Rozenberg
The Telegraph
Dec. 01, 2006

A former law lord last night accused the Government of prosecuting a "lawless and outrageous" war in Iraq and condemned the Bush administration for behaving like a "totalitarian police state". Calling for troops to be pulled out of Iraq, Lord Steyn, in a lecture to the Bar Council's law reform committee, said it was "a black day for the rule of law" when Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, advised Tony Blair in 2003 that an invasion would be lawful. Lord Steyn, 74, said last night that Mr Blair was an "ever compliant ally" of the Bush administration, a view he has aired several times in the past.

"Our prime minister backed the Bush administration in regard to its so-called war on terrorism, however lawless and outrageous the means adopted," he said. The war "was an invasion by the US and Britain, without Security Council approval, of a sovereign country in a region of high social, religious and political tensions. It always was a reckless adventure against which the Foreign Office warned."