The Downing Street Years (142 page)

I met the President again in New York on the evening of Sunday 30 September. We were officially there to attend the ‘UN Children’s Summit’, an occasion at which the only high point was an inspiring speech from President Havel of Czechoslovakia. President Bush was very tired, having flown back to Washington from New York to complete negotiations with Congress on the fateful 1990 budget compromise, which was to undermine him politically, before returning for this meeting. But he was in good spirits. We discussed Jim Baker’s wish for another UN Security Council Resolution specifically to endorse the use of force to bring about Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait. As always, I was dubious, preferring to rely on Article 51. But what was clear to all of us was that the time for using force was now rapidly approaching. There was no evidence that sanctions were having any real effect on Iraq’s decisions — and that was what counted. I was clearer than ever in my mind that there could be no weakening in our resolve to defeat — and be seen to defeat — Saddam Hussein’s aggression.

As so often over these months I found myself reliving in an only slightly different form my experiences of the build-up to the battle for the Falklands. There is never any lack of people anxious to avoid the use of force. No matter how little chance there is of negotiation succeeding — and no matter how many difficulties are created for the troops who are trying to prepare themselves for war — the case is always made for yet another piece of last-ditch diplomacy.

On this occasion it fell to Mr Yevgeny Primakov, Mr Gorbachev’s special emissary on the Gulf, to make all the standard arguments. He
came to see me at Chequers on the afternoon of Saturday 20 October, having just returned from Baghdad. He argued for some ‘flexible linkage’ between the crisis in the Gulf and the Arab-Israeli problem to save Saddam Hussein’s face and to give ‘some room for manoeuvre’. I said that Saddam Hussein was a dictator, that we should look at his actions rather than listen to his words, and that there could be no deals with such a man. Of course, we all had a duty to return with greater determination to resolve the Arab-Israeli problem; but that duty obtained quite independent of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. He must not be appeased. We learned later that Mr Primakov had reported back to Moscow that Mrs Thatcher was quite the most difficult and determined of them all.

On the evening of Tuesday 23 October I had a meeting with Tom King and Douglas Hurd. The main purpose was to give guidance to the Chief of the Defence Staff at his meetings with General Colin Powell, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the United States over the next two days. I began by listing our strategic objectives. These were to provide the guidelines according to which British policy in the forthcoming war should be determined. Saddam Hussein must leave Kuwait and the latter’s legitimate Government must be restored. All hostages must be released. Iraq must pay compensation. Those responsible for atrocities must be brought to account before an international court. Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical capability must be eliminated in the event of hostilities and dismantled in the event of a peaceful withdrawal of Iraqi troops. To do this the widest possible alliance of Arab governments against Iraq must be maintained and Israeli involvement must be avoided. A regional security system must be established to constrain Iraq in the future.

As for Saddam Hussein himself, it would not be a specific objective to bring about his downfall, though that might be a desirable side-effect of our actions. We must aim for a situation in which Saddam Hussein had to face his own people as a beaten leader of a beaten army. I said that further work on targets in Iraq was needed. Purely civilian targets must be avoided. But it was for consideration whether power stations and dams should be regarded as legitimate targets. There was no intention that our forces should occupy any part of Iraqi territory, but they might need to enter Iraq in hot pursuit of Iraqi forces. I said that it was necessary to get the Americans to accept that military action would in all likelihood have to be initiated before the end of the year. I also said that we must try to continue to wean them away from seeking prior authorization for the use of force from the UN and to rely instead on Article 51.

I argued this last point through with Jim Baker when he came to see me on the evening of Friday 9 November. But I was not able to sway him. He said that UN authority was crucial to sustain the support of American public opinion for military action. I also raised my worries about delaying the military option until the extra American forces now being sent had arrived in the Gulf. I said that it was vital not to miss the window of opportunity which would close in early March. He was able to reassure me on this point. But by now time was running out for me as well as for Saddam Hussein.

In response to Jim Baker’s request and at my last Cabinet on Thursday 22 November — to which I announced my resignation as Prime Minister — the decision was made to double Britain’s military commitment and to deploy an extra brigade to the Gulf. We would send the 4th Brigade from Germany, comprising a regiment of Challenger tanks, two armoured infantry battalions and a regiment of Royal Artillery, with reconnaissance and supporting services. Together the two brigades would form the 1st Armoured Division. The total number of UK forces committed would amount to more than 30,000.

Since the morning of Thursday 2 August hardly a day had passed without my involvement in diplomatic and military moves to isolate and defeat Iraq. One of my very few abiding regrets is that I was not there to see the issue through. The failure to disarm Saddam Hussein and to follow through the victory so that he was publicly humiliated in the eyes of his subjects and Islamic neighbours was a mistake which stemmed from the excessive emphasis placed right from the start on international consensus. The opinion of the UN counted for too much and the military objective of defeat for too little. And so Saddam Hussein was left with the standing and the means to terrorize his people and foment more trouble. In war there is much to be said for magnanimity in victory. But not before victory.

CHAPTER XXVIII

In 1975 I was the first candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party to challenge an existing leader under the rules which had been instituted by Sir Alec Douglas-Home a decade earlier. Having entered the field as a rank outsider, I won the leadership in an open contest. So I am the last person to complain about having to meet a challenge to my own leadership. But the circumstances of 1990, when Michael Heseltine challenged me, were very different. I had won three general elections and lost none, whereas Ted Heath had lost three out of four. I was a sitting prime minister of eleven and a half years in office, whereas Ted was a newly-defeated Opposition leader. The beliefs and policies which I had pioneered in Britain were helping to remould world affairs. And our country was at that moment on the verge of war in the Gulf.

Of course, democracy is no respecter of persons, as my great predecessor, Winston Churchill, learned when having led Britain through her supreme struggle against the Nazi tyranny and in the midst of negotiations crucial to the post-war world order, he was defeated in the 1945 general election. At least, however, it was the British people who dismissed him from office. I was not given the opportunity to meet the voters — and they were not able to pronounce on my final term of office, except by proxy.

The 1965 procedure for electing the Tory leader was, by unwritten convention, not intended for use when the Party was in office. Theoretically, I had to be re-elected every year; but since no one else stood, this was a formality. Ever since Michael Heseltine flounced out of the Cabinet in January 1986, however, he had kept up a constant if
unavowed campaign to replace me. Inevitably, as problems mounted in late 1988 and 1989, closer attention was paid to the precise details of the system.

I have already described the growth of political discontent in the summer and autumn of 1989. Of its causes, the most important was the economy, as high interest rates had to be applied to curb the inflation which Nigel Lawson’s policy of shadowing the deutschmark had generated. This aggravated what would otherwise have been more manageable problems, such as the agitation over the community charge — a running sore which would get much worse the following year. There was also a hard core of opposition to my approach to the European Community, though this was very much a minority view. And there was, of course, a range of back-benchers who for various idiosyncratic reasons, or because they had been denied or removed from office, would be happy to line up against me. There was even talk of one of them putting up for the leadership as a ‘stalking horse’ for the real contender, Michael Heseltine, lurking in the wings.

In fact, Sir Anthony Meyer decided to mount a challenge for reasons of his own in 1989, and there had to be a contest. Mark Lennox-Boyd, my PPS, George Younger, Ian Gow, Tristan Garel-Jones (a Foreign Office Minister of State), Richard Ryder (Economic Secretary) and Bill Shelton constituted my campaign team who quietly identified supporters, waverers and opponents. They did their job well. I did not myself campaign and no one seriously thought that I should. The results were by no means unsatisfactory. I won 314 votes, Sir Anthony Meyer 33. There were 24 spoilt ballots and 3 abstentions. But the contest had revealed, as George Younger told me, a certain amount of discontent.

Accordingly, I increased the amount of time set aside in my diary for meeting back-benchers. I made more frequent visits to that fount of gossip, the Commons tea-room. I also began regular meetings with groups of back-benchers, usually recruited according to region so as to ensure a wide spectrum of views. At these meetings, which usually took place in my room in the House, I would ask everyone around the table to speak their mind and then come in at the end to answer point by point. There was frank speaking on both sides — on one occasion a back-bencher told me it was time for me to go. I may not have complied, but I did listen.

But no amount of discussion or attention to personal sensitivities could compensate for the political situation in the summer of 1990. High community charge bills made Conservative MPs anxious about their seats. Inflation and interest rates were still high. Divisions in the
Parliamentary Party and the Government over Europe sharpened as the pace of the federalist programme accelerated. The rank and file of the Party was still with me, as they would show at the 1990 Party Conference, indeed perhaps stronger than ever in their support. But too many of my colleagues had an unspoken contempt for the party faithful whom they regarded as organization fodder with no real right to hold political opinions. And in the event, no one would seriously listen to them — though they were formally consulted and pronounced heavily in my favour — when it came for my fate to be decided.

For my part, I remained confident that we could ride out these difficulties and win the next election. High interest rates were already doing their work in bringing down inflation, whatever the headline RPI figures showed. I was only waiting for signs that the money supply was firmly under control before cutting interest rates — and continuing to cut them even if that would entail a changed parity in the ERM. At the end of April I had my first serious discussion with the Policy Unit about policies that might be in the next manifesto. And that summer I had discussions with colleagues on setting up manifesto policy groups. My Party Conference speech in October 1990 raised the curtain on just a little of this, outlining proposals for privatization, training vouchers (and hinting at education vouchers), and increasing the number of grant-maintained schools. I had not decided when we would go to the country. But I wanted to be ready for the summer of 1991.

I had also been thinking about my future beyond the next election. There was still much that I wanted to do. Most immediately, we had to defeat Saddam Hussein and establish a durable security framework for the Gulf. The economy was fundamentally strong, but I wanted to overcome inflation and recession and restore a stable framework for growth. I thought there was a good prospect of mopping up communism in central and eastern Europe and establishing limited government under law in the new democracies. Above all I hoped to win the battle for my kind of European Community — one in which a free and enterprising nation-state like Britain could comfortably flourish. But I also knew that the wider framework of international relations which was needed in the post-Cold War world — one in which international bodies like the UN, the GATT, the IMF, the World Bank, NATO and the CSCE held the ring, while nation-states and international commerce were left to their own proper spheres of activity — would not be built in a day. This was a substantial long-term programme.