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Sarin Nerve Agent Leaks From Ala. Bunker - AP

ANNISTON, Ala. - A trace amount of sarin nerve agent leaked from a weapons
storage bunker at Anniston Army Depot, but no one was injured.

Workers were conducting routine checks for leaks Tuesday when a monitor
detected the agent outside the airtight bunker where the weapons are stored.

Sarin did not escape the area, and the concentration was not enough to hurt
anyone, said Cathy Coleman, a spokeswoman Anniston Chemical Activity, which
oversees the stockpile.

Tons of munitions are stored in dirt-covered, concrete igloos at the depot
50 miles east of Birmingham.

Since 1982, the Army has found 897 leaking chemical weapons in storage at
the depot, where the military is using an incinerator to destroy the aging
weapons.

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GREENPEACE.ORG.UK STATEMENT ON IRAQ WHISTLE-BLOWER CASE:

Marchwood 14 demand Attorney General's advice

Last edited: 04-03-2004

Following Lord Goldsmith's declaration that he would stand up in court to
defend his advice to go to war in Iraq, Greenpeace has asked the
Attorney-General to appear as a witness in a case against 14 of our
activists in Southampton next week.

If Lord Goldsmith refuses, we will ask the trial judge to issue a summons
against him.

During the build-up to war, Lord Goldsmith said on record: "I don't just
give advice to Government behind closed doors. I'm prepared to stand up and
defend that advice in the courts."

The 14 Greenpeace volunteers are facing criminal charges relating to their
occupation of tanks at Southampton's Marchwood military base in February
2003. Throughout their case they have argued that the war was illegal and
that their actions were necessary to prevent loss of life.

The Attorney General's evidence is thus crucial to their case, which has
taken on great significance since the Crown Prosection Service (CPS) claimed
the case against whistleblower Katherine Gun was dropped because they could
not "disprove the defence of necessity" - that is to say, they could not
counter the defence that her actions were justified to save lives.

Greenpeace's lawyers have been asking for the Attorney General's full advice
for nearly a year.

This week we called on him to honour his pledge when our lawyers wrote to
asking him to appear at the trial. He is yet to reply, but the trial judge
does have the power to force his attendance if the defence team demands it.

Greenpeace also placed an open letter in national, local and legal
publications asking Lord Goldsmith to give evidence at the trial.

Speculation suggests that the advice Lord Goldsmith gave to Tony Blair
changed in the days before the March 20th invasion. Greenpeace lawyers want
to know if his advice in February, when the Marchwood occupation took place,
was different from his final advice.

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US told UK Attorney General to alter legal advice on Iraq war

The attorney general initially told Tony Blair that an invasion of Iraq
would be illegal without a new resolution from the United Nations and only
overturned his advice when Washington ordered Downing Street to find legal
advice which would justify the war.

The devastating claim will be made by eminent QC and Labour peer Baroness
Helena Kennedy in a television interview today.

It is one of a series of attacks which put Blair under renewed and
increasing pressure to reveal full details of the legal backing for the war
against Iraq.

Lawyers, including one from Cherie Blair's legal chambers, Matrix, will
demand improved compensation and an inquiry into the deaths of Iraqi
civilians killed by British troops, which could raise the spectre of the
government being forced to disclose its advice on the legality of the war.

It is widely believed that the government's reluctance to do this was behind
its decision to drop all charges against GCHQ whistleblower Katherine Gun
last week.

The environmental group, Greenpeace is also demanding access to Lord
Goldsmith's advice in order to defend 14 activists due to appear in court in
connection with anti-war protests carried out last year.

Former cabinet minister Clare Short continued her relentless attack on Blair
when she described the way attorney general Lord Goldsmith's "truncated
opinion authorising war appeared at the very last minute" as "very odd".

Together, the new developments signal that the legal case for the allied
invasion of Iraq without a specific UN instruction authorising them to do so
has become the most dangerous threat to the Prime Minister and is unlikely
to go away.

Kennedy's claims, which will be made this morning in an interview on GMTV,
are arguably the most damaging. Her position as a member of the highest
echelons of the legal community will add credence to her claims that the
British government could find only two senior lawyers in the UK prepared to
back the case for the invasion.

Baroness Kennedy points out that Lord Goldsmith was a commercial lawyer with
no experience of international law and initially relied heavily on the
advice of lawyers within the Foreign Office in the months before the war. It
is widely believed that advice overwhelmingly warned against invading
without a UN resolution.

She claims that when Washington was told of this advice their response was
succinct: find a new lawyer.

Goldsmith then turned to Professor Christopher Greenwood of the London
School of Economics, who was known to support the invasion. Greenwood was
already on record as stating: "It would be highly desirable to have a second
UN resolution because that puts the matter beyond serious question. But if
that's not possible, I would support the use of force without the
resolution.''

After consulting Greenwood, Goldsmith told the cabinet an invasion could
take place within international law without the new UN resolution.

However, sacked Labour MP George Galloway insisted yesterday that Goldsmith
warned ministers that his advice relied on the accuracy of intelligence
information that Saddam posed a serious threat to British interest -
information which has since been discredited.

Baroness Kennedy says Blair is being "haunted" by the fallout of a war "that
will just not go away".

Clare Short yesterday said Foreign Office lawyers disagreed on the legality
of war and that senior officials in Whitehall were "worried that they were
being asked to prepare for illegal action".

After her disclosure that she had seen transcripts of material taken in
bugging operations conducted inside the office of the secretary general of
the UN, Kofi Annan, it remained a possibility she would either be prosecuted
under the Official Secrets Act or even be thrown out of the Labour Party.

Yesterday the chairman of the Labour party, Ian McCartney, appeared to rule
out any party censure. "I'm not going to make her a martyr," he told BBC
Scotland.

Lord Alexander of Weedon QC, a leading peer and lawyer, yesterday described
the content of Lord Goldsmith advice as "the most important legal opinion of
the last 50 years". He said without it the war would not have gone ahead and
20,000 Iraqis would not have been killed.

SundayHerald - 29 Feb 2004
By James Cusick, Westminster Editor