In a dazzling naval career that took him from officer cadet to chief of the defence staff in 40 years, Michael Boyce, Lord Boyce, who has died aged 79, showed his true mettle in his last year of service by demanding a guarantee from the then prime minister, Tony Blair, that he was acting legally in sending British forces into Iraq in 2003.
Boyce was not the only senior establishment figure to feel uneasy about the second American-led invasion of Iraq in a dozen years. The doubters even included the attorney-general of the day, Lord Goldsmith, who as the government’s chief legal adviser was consulted about the legality of the operation but at first failed to produce an unreserved endorsement. The deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned in March 2003, days before the invasion, because she believed it was illegal.
