The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (13 page)

I went out to play football for an hour with Calum, then in for TB’s War Cabinet meeting, TB, Jonathan, DM, AC, RW, AH, C and CDS. TB said he did not want the full War Cabinet daily, maybe two or three a week, but he would speak to Geoff and Jack separately. CDS was going to Tampa tomorrow and was hopeful we would get a fuller and better assessment after that. TB was pretty open about his worry about a lack of a clear overall strategy. There had to be ways of showing progress being made according to an understood plan. He was clearer than ever after the recent visits that our role had to be being in a position to give the Americans advice which they accepted, and adopted, as we were currently doing on Iraq, humanitarian, propaganda.

CDS set out where our forces were operating, and how we were liaising with the Russians. TB felt the division between Powell and Rumsfeld was raw and difficult. He said on the military, humanitarian, diplomatic, propaganda, post-Taliban planning and MEPP, there had to be far greater clarity and unity. I did a conference call and agreed with the Palestinian team that TB would push the boat out re the Palestinian state question if Arafat would condemn OBL, say he had no right to speak for Palestine and that this was an important message. The Taliban took a group of journalists into Afghanistan to Karam [village near Jalalabad, Nangarhar province], which they said had been destroyed by the US. The press were sceptical but even so I
called Karen Hughes and said they must get out a response on it. It was perfectly clear after a while that she didn’t know what I was talking about. I was surprised she hadn’t been told, and a bit worried about whether they were really at the races.

The press was all a bit ragged but it felt like we were losing the media battle. I was determined to get going on a proper operation for Muslim and Arab opinion, and also to strengthen US–UK operations. 8am, War Cabinet. Jack was worried that we were too lax on targeting and said that at the risk of being unpopular, he felt we should be thinking about it more carefully. TB listened for a bit and got a bit irritated, said our job was to set the overall strategy but you could not have a campaign run by committee because it will not work. John Vereker [permanent secretary, Department for International Development (DFID)] gave quite a positive report on the humanitarian front. Lander said there was a worrying increase in talk of threats to the US and UK, while TB was also a current target. There was no real sign of fracture within the Taliban, and also we still had mixed messages about the Northern Alliance. Both CDS and Geoff Hoon said there was no real clarity of where it was going. Our special forces were obviously key but we needed far greater clarity about what they were required for. C was very helpful on the Arab–Muslim opinion front, and agreed one of his best people would come to my meetings on it.

We had a pre-meeting with TB re Arafat [visit]. It was tricky, in that in the current context, things that both of them had said hundreds of times, might resonate differently. We really didn’t want Arafat just to go off on one on Israel. There had to be real substance coming out of this. Because TB was clear that getting the peace process going again was perhaps the single most important thing we could do. But it wasn’t hard to see how you could go from that to a position that pushed the Israelis off the other end. Arafat arrived, with the usual large entourage, but they did most of it one-on-one, with David Manning in there taking notes, and TB seemed to have given him a pretty straightforward message. We had the extended meeting which was really just an opportunity to finalise the scripts, agree pretty forward language on Palestinian state but also be clear it should not be pitched as a change of policy, which is what Arafat really wanted. Arafat wasn’t looking particularly well but as before, he managed to lift himself. The press conference went fine. TB had felt it wasn’t a great idea for the media to see Michael Levy [Labour fundraiser and adviser on Middle East], as they would make it all about party funding.
So he wasn’t very happy when Michael got himself into the departure shot. He just could not resist it. TB said he had only one thing to do – stay low profile – and he didn’t do it. Michael had a real desire to be recognised for what he was doing on MEPP, and put funding behind him, which was understandable.

I had my meeting with the broadcasters. I went through the issues, pretty gently, not remotely bullying, absolved them of blame for most of the stuff I was talking about. I told them about our worries on the videos and emphasised that the security issues around TB were very real, and it wasn’t on to report his movements in advance. Richard Sambrook [BBC director of news] said they would prefer I hadn’t done this through the lobby. I said that was because we were exasperated by their continued reporting of his movements. I had a very good meeting with key FCO and SIS people on Arab–Muslim media. I said I wanted somebody monitoring this stuff for me full time, saying what we got right and what we got wrong. John Kerr had given me a very bright Arabic speaker called Gerard Russell who would be able to go out there on the Arabic TV and speak for us.

George Tenet [CIA director] was coming in to see TB with C, who brought him round to see me to discuss the notes I was sending through to Karen and enlist his help in persuading them of the need for much better communications. I told him we feared they were putting out messages that were very good and positive for the American audience, but not for the broader community, including here, but also above all in the Arab world. He said Richard [Dearlove] had talked to him about it, that Condi was the key to this, that I needed to get her on board to persuade Bush they needed to crack down on the mixed messages (the latest today, [Dick] Cheney [US Vice President] and the Health Secretary [Tommy Thompson] saying different things on bio-terrorism) and run a properly co-ordinated international structure. David Manning felt he and I should go there next Tuesday. Tenet said the US was totally fixated on the anthrax scare.
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Tenet was bright, but had a slightly irritating habit of playing with a large cigar when he was listening. He said he totally bought what we were saying and he would feed it back. He agreed we needed more [Colin] Powell and less Department of Defense. Mum phoned later, saying Dad was going to have to get tests for a possible brain tumour.

There was a growing sense that things were not going brilliantly. TB was doing a speech on public services so I went up to the flat to work on that with him. He had pretty much done the draft himself. The Jo Moore thing was still big and we agreed she should do something to camera, which she did in the afternoon, apology then back to work. She did OK, looked fine but sounded very fed up. Colin Powell was going to Pakistan but the backdrop was the division between him and the Defense Department. David Manning spoke to Condi and said she was very excited at the idea of us both going out there and felt on the media side, I would be pushing at an open door. The aid agencies were calling for a pause in the bombing.

The general feeling was that Jo’s public statement had backfired and made matters worse. Also, there was a real feeling media-wise that Afghanistan was not going according to plan. At the 8am meeting, CDS reported back from Tampa that they intended to carry on bombing at this intensity for a couple of days, then really push on for the fall of the Taliban. He said [General] Tommy Franks [commander-in-chief, US Central Command (CENTCOM)] was fine and strong but there was no clear political direction. Rumsfeld was felt to be very erratic. TB felt there were some critical decisions not being faced up to, e.g. on the Northern Alliance, we either get behind them or not. His view was we should go full steam ahead with them but at the same time put other groups alongside them. But it wasn’t as simple as that, the Northern Alliance was not cohesive, there were eight or nine tribal chieftains in varying states of control. TB said the Northern Alliance must be sitting there thinking the Americans were just scared of suffering casualties.

TB said the Taliban will not fold unless there is someone moving in to drive them out. He also felt we were losing the battle on the humanitarian front, that somebody really strong had to be in charge of it. Chris Patten’s name was floated. He also wanted more pressure on the Russians for the use of bases in Uzbekistan. David Manning pointed out that Ramadan began on November 17, which would be another complicating factor.

Karen Hughes called from Air Force One, said she had discussed my note with Bush and I should go out next week. TB spoke to Bush at 2pm. Bush said the anthrax there was weapons grade and probably given to OBL by Saddam. Later in the conversation he said he hoped
TB was in the loop about targets in other countries. TB made three main points: 1. we had to go for the Northern Alliance, let them do what they could, put them on a leash if need be and hold them back later. Bush said he agreed, that ‘You are right as always’, the Northern Alliance are the best people to help us but they have to be able to share power later. 2. get other countries involved, however small their commitment, e.g. Jordan, other friendly Arab nations. Bush said in fourteen days we would have Mazar-e-Sharif [city in north Afghanistan] and Kabul [capital of Afghanistan] in friendly hands. 3. on the humanitarian, TB said some truly awful pictures would start to come through and it was important people understood the bigger context first, otherwise there would be a bigger backlash against us.

They then discussed the propaganda side and Bush said he had heard that I was really discouraged after our visit to the Middle East and I had really got Karen and her people going. He switched between serious statesman and Texan redneck pretty quickly, e.g. when after a serious discussion on public opinion in the Arab world, he suddenly said ‘We got the asshole on the run and we’re gonna get the bearded one soon.’ He also said ‘I ain’t got much credibility on this peacekeeping stuff so I want those Scandinavians involved.’ I wasn’t sure what Prince Charles wanted to do. His office having asked how he could help, now Stephen Lamport [private secretary to the Prince of Wales] wasn’t clear what kind of visits he would do. TB called late after his call to Chirac and was plucking his guitar rather annoyingly. He was very pleased with himself that he had managed to fix a three-way meeting with Chirac and Schroeder before the Ghent [EU] summit.

The
Mirror
was wall-to-wall offside, and other papers/chatterati were starting to get very flaky. Not even two weeks into the bombing and they were all very jumpy already. I did a briefing for the Arab–Muslim media, the first briefing I had done with three Special Branch in tow, though thankfully none of them seemed to notice. It went well and I enjoyed doing it, partly because I could feel that they realised there was a point. The questions were the obvious ones, MEPP, Iraq, protests. I promised them far greater access to ministers.

At the War Cabinet, Scarlett said the Americans seemed to be upping their support for the Northern Alliance and were starting to probe positions at Mazar-e-Sharif. CDS said CENTCOM had said they would give whatever support the NA needed. TB was back saying we needed to construct a leash to pull them back in. As he listened, I could see Blunkett getting more and more agitated.
Eventually he said it was incredible that we were all sitting around basically saying there was no clear strategy. He said I don’t want to shoot the messenger but where is this all going? He said we were coming up to Ramadan and even bigger problems and if we weren’t careful this would all turn against us. Kerr said [Lakhdar] Brahimi [UN special representative for Afghanistan] had to get his skates on. We went through the humanitarian side of things. Clare was up on the border today and doing OK. Lander reported on a specific threat to TB. TB was a bit irritated at Geoff and CDS who both seemed to have lost confidence and therefore weren’t inspiring it. Afterwards, the full Cabinet in which they went over pretty much the same ground.

Then to TB’s press conference where he was working from notes and we were trying to get up the line about the next two weeks being the most testing period. There was a bit of resistance from the Foreign Office that I was trying to take premises, people and resources, but John Kerr was being extremely helpful. We were starting to get the backlash following the announcement of the three-way trilateral with Chirac and Schroeder. Catherine Colonna called to say they were very keen to hold their press conference at 7, but Berlusconi in particular was throwing a total wobbly. There was a danger tomorrow’s summit would be a total shambles. TB said to me he wanted me to try to take over the propaganda side of things because what it lacked at the moment was total single-mindedness.

Richard W came to see me, said there was a really bad feeling around the place re Jo Moore. I said it would get a lot better if civil servants weren’t constantly briefing against her. At the morning War meeting, Scarlett said there was a clear sense of Taliban morale crumbling. The chief of the air force was among the Taliban waverers. A fair number of defections and confidence Mazar-e-Sharif would fall soon. The Northern Alliance were far more bullish. CDS reported that the Americans were getting a bit fed up with us for not agreeing to all the targets. TB said if there was any target that we believed should be hit and there were legal problems here, he wanted to know about it. He said if I was Bush, I would be going spare about this. Later he called [Lord] Goldsmith over. RW gave a word of caution in relation to the
Belgrano
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and TB said the problem there was not the legality,
it was the attempt to cover it up. I couldn’t resist adding ‘A failure of spin over a discredited Tory regime.’ Richard smiled.

I did a conference call with Jack and all our ambassadors in the Arab world to get them bought into the need for a more proactive approach. Most of them seemed to get it, though there were one or two whingers who basically said there was nothing much we could do. But it was an OK call and I felt we were making progress. We left for Ghent on an RAF flight, the only real story the Big Three summit. TB seemed fairly relaxed about it. I was worried it would end up as a coalition fracture but TB felt the risk was outweighed by the benefit of Chirac wanting us involved in this way. We arrived and went straight to the meeting in the cellar room of a chapel. Chirac seemed a bit pissed off that it was TB plus three – DM, Jonathan and I – whilst he and [Lionel] Jospin were plus one. Schroeder was a bit late so Chirac kicked off going through what the French could offer, mainly AWACs [airborne warning and control planes] and special forces, reconnaissance and refuelling. He was clearly keen to get involved quickly. TB told him we had people working alongside the NA. Chirac felt pre winter and pre Ramadan we had to step up the pace. TB said at the moment we had no option but to work through the NA but we would need to bring them back in if they became too difficult. They were vital to taking Mazar-e-Sharif.