Lord Steyn, a crossbench peer and former Law Lord, is quoted in the FT:
"The invasion of Iraq has had, and will continue to have, grave consequences for the peace and security of the region and the world. It weakened international institutions.
It fractured the international rule of law.
It encouraged disrespect for the law by authoritarian regimes who copied the words and examples of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Torture became ever more widespread. Rendition, a fancy word for kidnapping, became institutionalised as a form of torture by proxy in odious regimes."
Meanwhile the Iraq Inquiry was told by Sir David Manning, Blair's foreign policy adviser, on Monday that Blair promised George Bush at a meeting in Texas, 11 months before the Iraq invasion, that he would be prepared to join the US in toppling Saddam Hussein.
The trouble with Blair's promise is that it was illegal.
Blair was warned by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, and other legal advisers that going to war with regime change as the objective was unlawful and breached the UN charter.
QED: The war was illegal!
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