Release of the documents could embarrass Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose predecessor Tony Blair was accused by critics of glossing over lawyers’ initial reservations about launching the invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Blair was US President George W. Bush’s strongest ally in the war, which started on March 20, 2003.

“The public interest in disclosing the cabinet minutes in this particular case outweighs the public interest in withholding the information,” the offi ce of Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, who adjudicates on contested Freedom of Information Act requests, said in a statement.

Thomas was ruling on a request from an unidentifi ed member of the public for the government to release confi dential records of two cabinet meetings held between March 7 and March 17, 2003, just days before the confl ict began. Those meetings discussed the legal advice by then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith on the legality of invading Iraq.

In 2005, Channel Four news published what it said was the text of a secret March 7, 2003, opinion by Goldsmith stating that “a court might well conclude” that UN Security Council resolutions did not authorise war without a further resolution.

Just 10 days later, after Britain failed to obtain a new Security Council resolution, Goldsmith presented the cabinet with a single page “summary” of his advice in which he said conclusively that the war was legal and mentioned no doubts. The government had refused to release the cabinet minutes, saying they were exempt from disclosure because they dealt with “the formulation of government policy and ministerial communications.

Richard Thomas overruled those arguments, saying release of the information would allow the public more fully to understand the cabinet’s decisions on the Iraq war.

He backed the government’s request to withhold references in the minutes which the government argued “would be likely to have a detrimental effect on international relations” if made public.

The government’s Cabinet Offi ce said it was considering the ruling and it has the option of appealing to a tribunal. Britain’s involvement in the US-led military action against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime remains controversial, even fi ve years after the event.

Animosity towards the governing Labour Party and the former prime minister Tony Blair lingers because of the now discredited basis for invasion -- Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction -- and the human cost of war.