This article draws upon the Chilcot Report to undertake a Foucauldian-influenced critique of the processes surrounding the creation of the Attorney General’s (AG) Iraq war advice. It argues that four significant power/knowledge dynamics acted to construct the AG’s clear statement that military action was internationally lawful. First, Blair-era lapses in record-keeping and related ministerial disputes concerning the bureaucratic apparatus of writing acted to limit the available knowledge of Iraq-era events. Second, the Blairite practice of highly selective sharing and management of information within government acted to foster knowledge asymmetries, making challenge or resistance more difficult. Third, belatedly providing the AG with a highly partisan background knowledge ultimately informed his legal interpretation by tailoring the crucial informational context in which he drafted his advice. Fourth, the AG’s credibility and legal expertise were strategically traded upon to enhance the presentation of his legal statement to Cabinet, Parliament and the public. These four practices acted cumulatively to produce a legal knowledge that instigated war and have remained influential in post-Iraq military actions, thus supporting Foucault’s thesis that power and knowledge are reciprocal. Ultimately, this analysis reveals the that the definitive, clear legal ‘green light’ authored by the singular, independent AG was a reifying liberal-constitutional fiction that Number 10 simultaneously undermined and exploited.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)