The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (82 page)

He said war had to be absolutely the last resort because the consequences – political, human and economic – were terrible. It was a tense, pretty spiky meeting and at the plenary as well, though people were pretty much going through the motions of saying what they discussed at the various bilaterals, the atmospherics were poor and flat. Only the chiefs of defence seemed to have got on. When the French CDS [General Henri Bentégeat] said that Boyce was shortly leaving his job, it set Chirac off into a huge, obviously pre-planned, and for us rather embarrassing, tribute to Boyce. Chirac was even more full of Gallic gesture than usual. His face seemed to get more lined with every meeting. TB was tougher than usual, felt the letter had had a genuine and desired impact, that he now knew if France and Germany tried it again, we had the wherewithal to build alliances elsewhere. TB and Chirac had lunch together.

I was with Catherine, who had been with him about the same time I had been with TB. We agreed to get them away from the others before the press conference to try to get the focus on the need for Saddam to disarm, and the importance of the UN, also to try to minimise the differences on the tough questions, e.g. second resolution. Both did pretty well, good body language, no attempt to deny differences, but Chirac brilliantly fobbed off the really difficult questions, e.g. on material breach, US–UK. TB was keen to get back to vote on the Lords, so we got some of the ministers out doing end-of-summit interviews. Chris Meyer sent over a bootlegged version of Powell’s presentation. Tony Benn [former Labour Cabinet minister] had done an interview for Channel 4 with Saddam [in Baghdad], which was nauseatingly toadying.
¹³

TB was pleased with the way the day had gone, felt that particularly over lunch Chirac had been warm and making an effort. TB called
again later, said he felt he could now see a way of getting to the same place with Chirac. I said surely the best thing for Bush was to get Saddam out without a war. TB said that was his whole strategy, get the Blix report, then a second resolution, then get the Arabs to press him to go.

The Powell presentation to the UN was going to be the focus of the day but [Andrew] Gilligan [BBC] had a so-called secret DIS [Defence Intelligence Staff] paper suggesting there was no real link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
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Up to see TB for PMQs preparation and we were assuming they would do the Lords after last night’s debacle.
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And maybe Iraq pre Powell. We had a meeting of the Iraq communications group to go over how we dealt with Powell. I saw Ed Balls who returned to the theme of the so-called leadership/euro deal, allegedly done by intermediaries, by which I presume he meant Anji [Hunter] and Sue Nye and from which, he said, he and I were to be excluded. I said for God’s sake, let’s get real. He said GB was still obsessing re why TB did not reply to his note. The reality was there were real policy differences between them.

I said we needed proper structures for discussing strategy and we had to be honest with each other about the problems. I felt he, Philip, Douglas and I should meet regularly. He wanted to add Spencer Livermore. I said the most important thing was that we agreed things and then stuck to them, instead of constantly moving the arguments to slightly different places. I’d had a session with Arnab Banerji [recently appointed economic adviser to Blair], who I think was finding it difficult to work out exactly what his role was meant to be, but he said the Treasury was full of angst and vibes that TB would try to move Gordon. I sensed from Ed that GB was a bit more nervous. He kept saying we stand or fall together. His line about TB doing a deal, that he would go if GB helped him do the euro, was probably the line that they were developing for public use if TB did try to get rid of him. It was a good meeting though, and we always worked better if we worked together. Then a meeting with Peter M, Philip and Peter H where we agreed that things had got a bit cavalier and slipshod, that we weren’t properly knitting together policy, politics and
communications. On the GB front, Peter M was against my closer co-operation strategy, said that all they did was use these meetings to hoover up intelligence and use it against us.

The Powell presentation to the UN re WMD had gone well and there was a sense of things moving back to us. The first meeting of the day was with JS and GH who had a bit of a spat about the DIS leak. Then CDS, C, Eliza [Manningham-Buller], John [Scarlett] and the main MoD targeter. They took us through a presentation of ‘shock and awe’ making clear that the aim was an overwhelming immediate effect. Jack and I both felt the words ‘shock and awe’ were ghastly and I spoke to Dan about it later. Boyce said it was the first time we had done an effects-based campaign. The aim was to isolate Baghdad. Hit bridges, deny WMD capability as the risk would be at its highest early on. Some of our guys to go forty-eight hours before the air campaign starts. They envisaged sixteen days between the start of the air campaign and a ground campaign, but want to get that down to as low as five days if we can get the regime to collapse early. Scarlett warned that there would be civilian casualties and that Saddam would use them to create political problems here.

TB asked about the assessment on collateral damage. Geoff said some was inevitable but the missiles were far more effective, even since Afghanistan. It had to be clear we were targeting Saddam and the regime, and also focusing on the aftermath and the humanitarian. When Geoff said that Rumsfeld was going to be running the humanitarian side, he was met with laughter mixed with shock all round the table. Shock and awe humanitarian. C reported that Blix was making clear there could be no aggressive inspections in mosques and cemeteries. He also said no serious interviews had really taken place at all because there had been so much intimidation. Eliza gave a very gloomy picture of the terrorist scene here, said that even though al-Qaeda were not directly linked to Iraq, they would use an attack on Iraq to step up activity here. TB was looking really worried at that point. There was also a lot of intelligence around on a planned hit on Heathrow. TB said he had no doubt that trying to remove Saddam quickly in the event of action was the best way, but he wanted to know what he was in for. C and John said there were suggestions that the Republican Guard were to be kept out of Baghdad because Saddam didn’t trust them fully. Then to Cabinet, after a brief wash-up session with a worried-looking TB.

Cabinet was fine though as Tom Kelly said to me, Clare Short was
like the granny who sat in the corner talking through the important bits when the family was trying to watch TV. TB reported on Camp David and the Chirac talks, put a pretty optimistic face on both. Jack went through what was happening at the UN. Robin was quizzing on the parliamentary process, Clare on India/Pakistan and rebuilding Iraq. JR said he was troubled about the lack of domestic consensus, that there was a sense of people losing their moral compass about the nature of the Iraqi regime. Tessa said she didn’t know anyone under twenty-five who supported action and we had to do better at countering the scepticism.

Then Blix and ElBaradei came in. TB asked Blix how he was with the weight of the world on his shoulders. ‘A lot is on yours,’ said Blix. He felt Powell had done well but he was avoiding comment. He was pretty cagey all the way through, made clear his job was to be sceptical. TB said the issue was whether they were co-operating or not. At the moment there appears to be some, but there must be full co-operation. Blix said they had discussed the idea of enhanced co-operation. They were trying to resolve the issues of anthrax and VX. On the remnants of old programmes, they should be able to tell us. TB said that the reason we believe they are not co-operating is that we have no more documents, and they are resisting proper interviews. Blix described it as a moment of truth, but also said he did not want to be put in a particular arena. He felt the 14th of February was a little early to report to the UN [Security Council] and that they had a meeting of the College of Commissioners [of UNMOVIC] on the 12th.

TB said he felt Iraq would come up with some surprise to split the international community, that intelligence showed he would regard giving up WMD as a total humiliation, that it was essential to his internal grip. Blix said the South Africans were sending a delegation to tell them how to give up WMD. Blix said Iraq had definitely been hampered by inspection. He said they had been to some of the places named in the dossier, and it could be they had been sanitised, but they found nothing. The indication was that come February 14 he would be saying they had not found WMD but there was no real co-operation. He didn’t want to name scientists for interview for fear that they would be killed. He was a lot less bullish than last time and clearly fed up with the feeling he was being bullied by America. He didn’t want to pose any new questions because they would take so long to answer.

Then TB saw ElBaradei. He was quite open and chatty, less nervy than Blix. He said the Iraqis claimed they had never tried to get
uranium but it wasn’t true. He didn’t think many tears would be shed in the Arab world if Saddam went. He was worried that Iraq would claim they were being attacked not because of weapons but because they were a Muslim country. He felt it better if TB and Bush could say it was part of a vision of a zone free of nuclear weapons. Also, it was important the aftermath was a UN administration, multilateral, not the US. He said their strategy was to force him into co-operation, though he doubted it was possible. But he came back again and again to the theme that American public diplomacy wasn’t working.

TB said we had to sort out Saddam in as peaceful a way as possible, but above all sort out MEPP. He said Saddam’s duty was one hundred per cent co-operation, not hide and seek. ElBaradei said we needed intrusive inspection but it can’t be done without active co-operation. TB said if there was a breach, there would be a second resolution and then we could build pressure on him to go. I caught the news later, ElBaradei making clear that the Arab world wanted Saddam out and they would help him on his way if they could. Blix was less impressive, came over as very ponderous and bureaucratic.

TB and I left for Northolt to fly to Newcastle where he was doing a two-part [BBC]
Newsnight
special, first on Iraq with an audience of critics and then on public services. It was a good setting, with a view out over Gateshead and Newcastle. He was very strong on Iraq, not so good on public services. Meanwhile Channel 4 ran a story that the CIC paper on the infrastructure of concealment, which I’d commissioned, had included passages plagiarised from a Californian document, and claiming we had made it look like intelligence.
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It gave them another spin story, which was a real pain.

The CIC dossier was causing a lot of embarrassment. Seemingly whole chunks were lifted off the Internet. I wrote a note to the CIC to emphasise the importance of quality control and to make clear that this shouldn’t have happened. It was a bad own goal, especially as we didn’t need it given the very good intelligence and other materials
we had. Definitely no more dossiers for a while. I called John Scarlett who was very nice about it, but also rightly emphasised how careful we had to be. Then another major PR problem emerged, namely Derry’s pay rise as part of the pay review bodies. Derry’s pay was linked to the Lord Chief Justice who was linked to the performance-related pay of permanent secretaries and it meant he would get a £22,000 rise. The feedback from
Newsnight
was good, though the dossier was a real setback. It also came to be stated as a fact that it had been put together by Alison [Blackshaw, AC’s PA] and John Pratt [press office assistant]. Ridiculous, but a sign of how difficult it was going to be to get our message across.
Newsnight
had pulled in 4.2 million viewers, way up on usual, almost matching BBC1.

Then to the LSE [London School of Economics] where I was speaking to Philip’s students. There were a few Trots around but nothing like the trouble they had feared. During my speech about twenty came to the stage and held up banners urging NO to conflict, but I was perfectly polite to them and they just stayed there, largely ignored. I felt the Q&A session went fine. At the end Philip called one of the protesters to ask a question and I really laid it on the line about Resolution 1441, the authority of the UN. I asked him if he believed the UN was the best place to resolve it. He said the UN was a front for American imperialism, at which the audience groaned, and he was dead. I went through the whole Iraq story as reasonably and dispassionately as I could, and was surprised to get very warm applause for it, as also for a passionate defence of politics and the centrality of communications to any programme of progressive change.

Times
magazine did a good piece on the marathon with a good appeal at the end. TB called early on in a rage, adamant he had not signed off Derry’s pay rise. We didn’t quite know how it had happened, but when I called Derry it was pretty clear to me he had no intention of giving it up because of what he saw as a hoo-ha in the tabloid press. Derry was very clever but sometimes lacked very obvious politics. JR called to say he was confident we could fight our way through Iraq but how do you defend this when you are telling soldiers, teachers and firemen to settle for less? JP called, asking if it was worth us trying to get him to change his mind. I said I didn’t think so but we could try. JP spoke to him, said he wasn’t just the head of the judiciary, but a member of the Cabinet that was agreeing the pay of other public sector workers, that he had to get political because
this was damaging government and party. JP said Derry put the phone down on him. JP was also asking GB to call him but he never did and then I had Ian Austin on asking if I could get it sorted because GB was on
Frost
.

Jeremy [Heywood] was on the case and worked a way out, namely to review the salary link in the light of performance-related pay and also review whether in fact the Lord Chancellor’s salary did have to be higher than the Lord Chief Justice’s. Derry still didn’t want to budge, saying to me ‘I’m buggered if I’m going to do something because of the tabloid press.’ But as TB said, we all hate the press, but it doesn’t mean they are always wrong and they are right about this. It is indefensible in the context of our overall policy on pay. JP made clear that both he and GB would find it impossible to defend in their various interviews tomorrow. But it took two more very difficult conversations.