Factbox: Britain''s legal basis for Iraq war

(Reuters) - The government''s top lawyer and senior legal advisers at the Foreign Office in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq are giving evidence this week to a London inquiry examining Britain''s role in the war.

Here is a summary of the reasons that former Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith gave to parliament justifying the use of force in March 2003.

* Goldsmith said the use of force was based around three United Nations resolutions, 678, 687 and 1441.

* U.N. resolutions 678 and 687 were passed before and after the 1991 Gulf War.

Resolution 678 authorized force against Iraq to eject it from Kuwait and 687 said a ceasefire at the end of the war obliged Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction.

* Resolution 1441 was then passed by the U.N. Security Council in 2002, demanding Iraq disarm or face "serious consequences."

* Three days before the war, Goldsmith argued that under resolution 1441, the U.N. Security Council had determined that Iraq was in breach of resolution 687 and that authorization for the use of force under resolution 678 had been revived.

"Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441," he said in a parliamentary statement on March 17, 2003.

* The advice contrasts with views expressed by Goldsmith in a letter to then Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon in March 2002 which has already been given in evidence to the Iraq Inquiry.

"I have noted that you made a clear statement that we would be perfectly entitled to use force without a specific United Nations resolution and that there is no legal necessity to go back to the United Nations," Goldsmith said.

"I think you should know that I see considerable difficulties in being satisfied that military action would be justified on the basis of self-defense.

"In particular I am not aware of the existence of material indicating the existence of an imminent threat from Iraq of the sort which would justify military action without support of a Security Council Chapter V11 authorization."