Two British newspapers reported on Sunday that the country's top lawyer was pressured to change his advice to Prime Minister Tony Blair on the legality of war in Iraq to say that an invasion would be legally justified.
A spokesman for Blair's office refused to explicitly deny or confirm the reports and insisted the government would not publish the legal advice.
Details of that advice could have been revealed at a high-profile spying case which was dropped last week by the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith, the newspapers said.
The Observer cited senior sources involved in providing legal advice as saying Goldsmith was "sitting on the fence" but redrafted his advice to allay fears of military chiefs who had wanted assurances the war was legal before committing troops.
The Independent on Sunday said military chiefs of staff argued for a clearer legal basis on which to go to war and Goldsmith complied days before the invasion.
A spokesman for Blair's Downing Street office declined to answer questions on whether the advice was changed, saying the government did not discuss internal legal matters. "There is a long-standing convention followed by successive governments that legal advice is not disclosed," he said. "The Attorney-General stands by his legal advice. As he has said many times, the advice was right then and is right now."
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said the chief of defence staff at the time, Sir Michael Boyce, would have been required to "satisfy himself that any military operation of any scale was legal" and that the war in Iraq was no different.
"As chief of defence staff and as representative of the other chiefs of staff, he was entirely satisfied with the legality," the spokeswoman said.
UNDER WRAPS: Blair, who has been under almost constant pressure since the end of the Iraq conflict over his handling of the war, has consistently refused to publish Goldsmith's advice to him but insists the Iraq invasion was legal.
Newspapers said on Sunday that advice could have been made public if a case against a former translator for Britain's intelligence services had gone to trial.
The case was dropped on Wednesday when state prosecutors said they had insufficient evidence to show Katharine Gun broke the Official Secrets Act by leaking a memo which she said revealed a US plot to spy on United Nations missions.
At the time of the memo, London and Washington were trying to persuade wavering Security Council members to back war.
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