A Journey (71 page)

In late July, I sent George another personal, private note setting out the case for going the UN route; and stressing again the Middle East peace process. David Manning, my foreign affairs adviser, went to Washington, talked it through with Condoleezza Rice and then direct with the president. I followed up with another call.

The debate around the UN within the administration was pretty fierce. We agreed to meet after the summer break.

I reflected with the closest team on the different strands of the challenge. If it came to war, how did we do it with least bloodshed? That was the military question. On the basis that we did it, how did we maximise the coalition? That was the UN question. And how did we do it without provoking uproar across the Middle East? That was the Arab question.

When I returned from holiday I did a press conference in Sedgefield. It was strange how I always relaxed there, even in the most unrelaxing moments. I also had my lines clear. I was going to be very tough: we had to deal with Saddam; it was right to do it; we had to send an unvarnished and plain message on WMD to the world.

One other rather fateful decision was taken at that time. Reasonably enough, people wanted to see the evidence on Saddam and WMD. This evidence was contained in intelligence. It was not practice, for obvious reasons, to disclose intelligence. We decided we had to do it. Many times afterwards, I regretted this decision. The ‘dossier’, as it was called, later became the subject of the most vicious recrimination and condemnation. In reality, it was done because we could see no way of refusing it, given the clamour for it. The very unprecedented nature of it was, however, part of the problem. Both opponents and supporters of action against Saddam were urging us to share with the public the intelligence we had.

Two things should be said in retrospect about the dossier. First, contrary to
ex post facto
wisdom, it was considered at the time – September 2002 – dull, and not containing anything new. The infamous forty-five-minutes claim was taken up by some of the media on the day but not referred to afterwards, and was not even mentioned by me at any time in the future, including in the crucial parliamentary debate on 18 March 2003, which authorised military action. Of the 40,000 written parliamentary questions between September 2002 and the end of May 2003 when the BBC made their broadcast about it, only two asked about the forty-five-minutes issue. Of the 5,000 oral questions, none ever mentioned it. It was not discussed by anyone in the entire debate of 18 March 2003. So the idea we went to war because of this claim is truly fanciful.

Second, it would have been far better to have just published the JIC reports, i.e. the intelligence reports based on the raw material. We debated this, but understandably the intelligence services felt this was a breach of tradition too far. But had we done so, much grief – as well as many completely unfounded allegations about lying, making up the intelligence, etc. – would have been avoided. Or maybe not . . .

In the light of all the different allegations about the dossier, it is just worth nailing down a few of the myths. The dossier itself was the work of the JIC. They zealously and rightly protected its authorship. What it said, as the four concluded inquiries have now found, was an accurate summary of the material. Neither myself nor Alastair wrote any of it. I wrote the foreword only.

It is said, rightly, that the March 2002 JIC report on Iraq warned that the intelligence on Iraq was ‘sporadic’ and ‘patchy’. What is then omitted is what it went on to say, which was: ‘But it is clear that Iraq continues to pursue a policy of acquiring WMD and their delivery means.’ By September 2002, of course, further intelligence had been received. The final report reflected this and was firmer. But then the evidence was greater. Shortly before the dossier, fresh intelligence was received about a mobile production facility that had just been created. This led to the description of Saddam’s programme as ‘growing’.

It may be worth dealing with a further issue at this point. There was evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry that shortly before the outbreak of war, intelligence was received that Saddam might not be able to assemble WMD quickly. This was reported in the media coverage of the inquiry as meaning that, in effect, I was being warned that the threat was less than supposed. Actually, the intelligence was that Saddam had taken measures to conceal his programme, including dismantling and storing certain equipment. The overall impact of the intelligence was not that he had given up on his programme but that he was hiding it from the inspectors. I was specifically told this intelligence confirmed his WMD programme. So, far from being a warning to desist, it confirmed the need to persist.

Anyway, no doubt after a fifth inquiry there will still be calls for more. The truth is we believed, without any doubt at all, that Saddam had an active WMD programme. Given his history, we did so for pretty good reasons. There was no intent to deceive. Indeed, such an intention would have been in any event absurd, since once Saddam was out, the truth would be out also. The ISG Report, as I indicated earlier, explains both why we were in error and also what remained accurate.

On 7 September, prior to the publication of the dossier, we had gone back to Camp David. At this meeting we had one objective: to get George to go down the UN route, i.e. to agree that before any action we would pass a UN resolution and give Saddam a final chance.

This was not an easy sell. The US context, politically, was completely opposite to ours; and the UN did not play well there. The meeting was a little tense, though by then George and I had a really good personal chemistry. In the end, one to one, I got his acceptance, not as a favour but because I think ultimately he bought the idea that this was going to be a whole lot easier if we had a coalition behind us. I said that I really feared the consequences of US unilateral action; or US/UK joint action. I had written him a note prior to the meeting setting out my concerns and saying the very unpredictability of the outcome meant that a coalition was wise. We had to try for peace, even if eventually we did go to war. This was not Kosovo or even Afghanistan. It was going to be far tougher.

It’s true to say, however, that at that point the downside risk of military action revolved around how easy or hard it would be to remove Saddam, and any humanitarian fallout. There was, of course, also the Sunni/Shia issue, but never at that stage – or indeed until after Saddam’s removal – was the true threat perceived: outside interference by al-Qaeda and by Iran. The view of our military and intelligence was that though Saddam did sponsor terrorist groups, there was only hazy evidence of any al-Qaeda link; and after the Iraq–Iran War, with its one million casualties, it was assumed that Iran would be relatively compliant. The issue of the Sunni minority suddenly turned from rulers to ruled was extensively canvassed. But the main question was about Saddam’s capability of withstanding a military campaign and about the degree of support he might have. This is highly relevant to debates about the planning for the aftermath.

Once George declared he was in favour of going the UN route, the visit relaxed. Dick Cheney had been there for part of the time, and made it clear he was not for going down the UN route. He was unremittingly hard line.

Dick is the object of so much conspiracy theory that it’s virtually impossible to have a rational discussion about him. To those on the left, he is, of course, an uncomplicated figure of loathing. Even for the middle ground, they tend to reach for the garlic and crucifixes. You have to go pretty far right to find Dick’s natural constituency.

My take on him was different from that of most people. I thought he had one central insight which was at least worth taking seriously. He believed, in essence, that the US was genuinely at war; that the war was one with terrorists and rogue states that supported them; that it stemmed from a guiding ideology that was a direct threat to America; and that therefore the only way of defeating it was head-on, with maximum American strength, with the object of destroying the ideology and allowing democracy to flourish in its stead. He would have worked through the whole lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran, dealing with all their surrogates in the course of it – Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. In other words, he thought the world had to be made anew, and that after September 11, it had to be done by force and with urgency. So he was for hard, hard power. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We’re coming after you, so change or be changed.

Of course, this attitude terrified and repelled people. But, as will be obvious from what I have written, I did not think it was as fantastical as conventional wisdom opined. It is one struggle. Our enemy has an ideology. It does threaten us. The ultimate answer is in the spread of democracy and freedom. It is even possible to conceive of this, in different language, as being a progressive position, certainly where removing someone like Saddam was concerned.

My problem with the way he put it and wanted to do it was that the manner of doing it was incomplete. Precisely because the war was based loosely around an ideology, the fight had to be waged and won at the level of ideas and in a way that would appeal not to us, but to those who had fallen or might fall prey to that ideology. In other words, it couldn’t be a hard-power strategy alone. It had to encompass more than military might. It had to engage the people out in the Middle East, in the Muslim world, and had to build alliances within that world. This wasn’t some namby-pamby peacenikery; it was a critical part of winning. That was why, for example, progress to a Palestinian state was of such huge importance. It wasn’t a sideshow; it was central to the main stage on which the struggle was being played out.

Therefore, also, when it came to human rights and prisoner issues, we had to be showing by our actions the strength of our alternative ideas and, however constraining it might be, the truth was that in the reality of modern communications, in an age of information that was transforming the arena of public debate, this was not a weak-minded concession, it was an absolute imperative.

So there was much to be said for his insight, but the methods and messaging assumed the world of the 1980s, not the early twenty-first century.

By the end of September, we had a clear commitment for a fresh UN resolution. This also greatly helped with the concerns of our Attorney General, Peter Goldsmith, about the legality of action without one.

My speech at party conference that year came together with surprising ease. Though I dealt with Iraq and foreign policy, I reserved most of it for a huge push on reform. We were now well into our health, education and crime plans and I felt, at long last, both more confident about the case for them and more comfortable with the ministers fronting them.

A staunch friend as always, Bill Clinton turned up to the conference to spread a bit of stardust and remind them I was progressive and knew well at least one American other than George. He even went out to a Blackpool McDonald’s for a burger and fries, much to the amusement, astonishment and bemusement of the sprinkling of late-night diners. He had an endless ability for rapport with ordinary people, liked it, got something from it, felt reinvigorated from it. I could do it but was always a little shamefaced, never sure whether I was intruding or foisting myself on strangers. He would just love it, ‘shooting the breeze’, as if having a McDonald’s in Blackpool was what he did every Tuesday night as a matter of course. Kevin Spacey was there too, a really fun guy, who turned up with Bill for Northern night and did a brilliant impersonation of him. Also performing was Paul Rodgers, the lead singer of Free and Bad Company, and so a set of completely bizarre pictures of all of us were taken, with the party activists in awe at the spectacle.

I always reckoned that even the ones who didn’t like me (quite a few) or didn’t agree with me (a large proportion) still admired the fact I counted, was a big player, was a world and not just a national leader. It’s not a reason for doing anything, by the way, but the British, whatever they say, prefer their prime ministers to stand tall internationally. Most foreign leaders wouldn’t have turned a head if they wandered down Guildford High Street. The US president, yes. Others, not really, maybe Sarkozy in later times, but probably not Chirac even at the time. However, Brits would want to know that in Toulouse people would recognise me. Our leaders should stand out, and if not cut a dash, at least make an impact. The problem is as time has gone on and the world has changed, and Britain’s relative size and weight have shifted, it becomes harder to do. Not less desirable; just harder.

Again I stress: it’s not the reason for acting in Afghanistan and Iraq or anything else, but our alliance with the US gave Britain a huge position. Those who thought our closeness to America was a problem in the rest of the world could not have been further from the mark. On the contrary, it gave us immediate purchase. There was no greater nonsense than that our alliance with the US lost us standing in the world. The opposite is the case. This was true even in the Middle East. It was true in spades in China and India. I remember once debating the pure politics of Iraq with Robin Cook. He said to me: It will be a disaster electorally; remember Wilson and Vietnam – he didn’t side with the US. I know, I replied, and just remind me of the result of the 1970 election again? I’m not, by the way, commenting on the decision; only the pure politics of it.

In October 2002, we had evidence of the continuing terrorist threat when a nightclub in Bali was bombed, leaving just over two hundred dead, including many tourists, mainly Australian. It was an ugly jolt to any complacency. It was followed by the Moscow theatre hostage attack in which over a hundred died. A little later in February 2003 we had our own scare when we were told of a potential attack on Heathrow. We had the usual emergency meeting. The options included shutting the airport, but I feared that the consequence would be devastating for British industry and the airlines. Instead, I decided to put up a big presence around the airport as a deterrent, including armoured vehicles and heavily armed patrols. It worked, but the press accused us of inventing the whole thing as a pretext for stepping up the ‘war on terror’.