LONDON, May 22: British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday denied claims, after a leaked memo from his top legal adviser, that Britain and US forces may have acted unlawfully in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith had indicated in the memo leaked to the New Statesman magazine that a further UN mandate was necessary to authorize any activities after the occupation of Iraq beyond maintaining law and order.

Asked about Mr Goldsmith’s memo at his monthly televised press conference at Downing Street, Mr Blair insisted that the government had acted legally throughout.

“It is completely wrong to say that at any point of time, the attorney general has said that the government was acting unlawfully. We would never act unlawfully in relation to this,” the premier said.

“In any event, to be absolutely blunt, all these things have been overtaken by the UN resolution,” he added.

“My view is that a further (UN) Security Council resolution is needed to authorize imposing reform and restructuring of Iraq and its government,” Goldsmith wrote in his memo to Blair dated March 26, just six days into the invasion.

Mr Goldsmith’s legal warning, printed in full in the British left-wing weekly magazine, said that without a specific UN resolution, occupying powers are bound by strict limitations.

These included a bar on “wide-ranging reforms of governmental and administrative structures”, “any alterations in the status of public officials or judges” except in exceptional cases, changes to the penal laws, and “the imposition of major structural economic reforms”.

Following the claims in the New Statesman, opposition Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said: “If these reports are true, the British government has entered into a legal minefield.—AFP