Cabinet Ordered to Reveal Minutes on Iraq Invasion

The government was faced last night with the prospect of having to reveal cabinet minutes about the invasion of Iraq or being accused of covering up circumstances surrounding one of its most controversial and significant decisions.

The dilemma was forced on ministers by an order from the Information Tribunal to disclose the minutes of two key cabinet meetings, on 13 and 17 March 2003, when the legality of the invasion was discussed. The tribunal described the case as "exceptional". It brought together issues "that were so important that, in combination, they created very powerful public interest reasons why disclosure was in the public interest", it said.

By a majority of two to one, it rejected arguments by the country's most senior officials that disclosure would prevent ministers from having frank discussions and would undermine the principle of collective cabinet responsibility.

The government has 28 days to appeal against the tribunal's ruling in the high court. As a last resort, it can simply veto any decision to disclose the documents.

This is the first time the government has been told to disclose cabinet minutes under the Freedom of Information Act. The tribunal was responding to an appeal by ministers against a ruling last year by the information commissioner, Richard Thomas.

Thomas, the tribunal said yesterday, had stressed "the fact that the decision to go to war was controversial at the time, and remains so, because it was not one that was based on self-defence or a united international response to aggression".

The tribunal added: "It had been opposed by a mass public demonstration. It had been based on ... a strategy that was not supported by many other nations and is now perceived as having been based on incorrect intelligence."

Criticism had been made, the tribunal added, that it was not until "the last minute" that the full cabinet was able to see the then attorney general's revised opinion that invasion without a fresh UN resolution was legal.

There had been criticism that his previous legal opinion of 7 March, which contained serious caveats, was not disclosed to the cabinet.

The former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: "This is a major step forward in explaining the supine attitude of members of the cabinet towards military action and is clearly in the public interest.

"The government only have themselves to blame for this. By procrastinating over an inquiry into the political events before the Iraq war they have left themselves wide open."

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "Rather than have items of evidence dragged into the public domain piece by piece, the government should set up a full-scale privy council inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war.

"The sooner we can learn the lessons of the war the sooner we can apply them. It is imperative to begin an inquiry before memories have faded, emails have been deleted and documents have disappeared."

Former international development minister Clare Short, who resigned over Britain's involvement in Iraq, said: "I think people will be disappointed about how little the minutes will say ... They are always in very generalized terms."