Lord Goldsmith

The attorney general has published his view of the legal authority for any war against Iraq.

Lord Goldsmith, the prime minister's most senior legal adviser, has released a statement outlining his belief that military action in the Middle East would not be in breach of international law.

The peer published a written statement on Monday afternoon ahead of a House of Lords debate on the UK's obligations under international law concerning the use of armed force.

Liberal Democrat peers will led the opposition to Goldsmith's statement by declaring that war without a second United Nations resolution would be illegal.

Goldsmith argues that previous UN resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 provide the legal basis for a war in the face of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's failure to comply with the demands of the international weapons community.

"All of these resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows the use of force for the express purpose of restoring international peace and security," he said.

Resolution 1441, passed in November last year, "gave Iraq 'a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations' and warned Iraq of the 'serious consequences' if it did not," the statement said.

Much of the confusion surrounding the debate turns on the interpretation of the terms "final opportunity" and "serious consequences".

The UK, together with its key allies America and Spain, are set to withdraw their follow up to 1441 in the likelihood that it will fail to secure a security council majority.

It is though that a defeated resolution would undermine the legal case for war as laid down in 1441.

Critics argue that 1441 alone is not enough to justify an invasion of Iraq as it supersedes the previous resolutions and does not specify what the "serious consequences" confer.

Liberal Democrat spokesman on legal affairs Lord Goodhart argued that there was not a sufficient legal basis for launching a war.

Goodhart told the BBC on Monday that: "The argument seems to have come down entirely to the interpretation of the existing resolutions on the Iraqi situation, particularly 1441, and I must say that I do not believe that that authorised armed intervention without a second resolution."

Labour MP and former solicitor general Ross Cranston, disagreed, arguing that war would be legal even without a further resolution.

"First of all, there is 1441 itself and that refers back to other resolutions, there are a whole series of resolutions...The [Iraqi] ceasefire in 1991 was based on disarmament, which hasn't occurred," said Cranston.

"When we went into Kosovo [in 1999], we didn't have express authorisation by the security council...I think you can draw from that the fact that international law has to move with the times."