The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (100 page)

Iraq was looking a bit messy though Tariq Aziz [Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister] was in the hands of the US. I went to another meeting on Iraq but wasn’t really focused, and I suddenly realised how much of my thinking was about leaving. When Phil Stephens [
FT
] pointed out to me earlier that TB had been leader for almost nine years, it came as something of a shock, stated in those terms. I liked a lot of the people in the office, and was pleased with the team I had built, but was that enough to keep me? I don’t think so. Was the closeness to TB and all that meant enough? Not any more.

Then to a reshuffle meeting, TB, Pat McF, Sally, Peter H and I. TB was clear Clare would go, so would Scotland and Wales as separate jobs. He was also intending to reshape the Lord Chancellor’s Department and say farewell to Derry [Irvine], which would be quite a big thing to do. He was clearly feeling in bold mood. But he still felt the difficulty on public services was the paralysing effect of GB when he didn’t want to go with TB’s agenda. Home, and another humdinger of a row. Fiona said either she leaves and I stay, which she thought was a recipe for disaster, or we both go and I always blame her for forcing me out, which did not exactly make her feel good about the future either. A story came in later which would reinforce her view of how CB had changed for the worse, namely that she had been invited to a store [Globe] in Melbourne [Australia] and walked out weighed down by stuff. ‘I wish she didn’t have this thing about a bargain,’ TB said when I told him.

Grimsville at home. I was feeling really down. I couldn’t let things get so bad we split up. I went out for a run, and came across a scene in Golders Green that underlined how much I didn’t want it to happen. A young boy was screaming as his mother tried to hand him over to his dad, because it was ‘his weekend’. We had another flare-up on the way to the Landmark Hotel, where we were due to meet Alex [Ferguson]. We managed to have a nice time despite it all. We met Carlos Queiroz [assistant manager, Manchester United] who seemed a decent sort, Tony Coton [goalkeeping coach] and some of the players. Alex was clearly losing it with [David] Beckham. ‘He’s upstairs
preening himself.’ He said when he dropped him Real Madrid knew about it within minutes. He felt Beckham was addicted to the press profile, couldn’t exist without it. He said even Gary Neville [teammate] was losing it with him a bit.

It was a nice enough hotel but he ended up complaining about the wine. ‘Govan boy complains about the wine,’ he said. ‘That’s New Labour.’ Fiona said she held him responsible for me still being there, because he had been so adamant at the time of the election that I should stay. He said ‘No, what I said was do what you’re good at and if you’re still good at it, carry on, but always be in control.’ He reckoned if I knew what else I would rather do, and I would be happy away from it, I should go. Fiona was a lot calmer talking about these things when it wasn’t just the two of us and now she was saying she’d be happy for me to stay till the next election provided she was absolutely clear that that was it. Alex was talking through who might be his successor. Maybe [Roy] Keane [Manchester United captain] – ‘the most intelligent player I ever worked with’. On GB, he felt he was clever but lacked Tony’s presence.

TB called first thing, after two long conversations with GB, and said they’d been awful. On foundation hospitals TB said to him ‘Am I supposed to believe that Frank Dobson and Bill Morris [TGWU general secretary] just stumbled across these arguments against foundation hospitals?’ For example Dobson had written to MPs on foundation hospitals and referred to the J-Curve theory [of how nations rise and fall]. On the euro TB thought that GB was buying into the idea of a rewritten assessment of the euro but when Jeremy went through it with Ed Balls, it went nowhere. It had taken TB almost forty-eight hours to get hold of him. When he did at least they were talking but he said GB was just creating non-arguments. It was draining and on the fundamentals they couldn’t agree.

TB felt GB clearly believed that TB was going to move or sack him and this was all about protecting himself. He’d said to him ‘I know what you’re up to. I know your plans.’ TB said to him ‘I don’t have a plan. I would like to work with you.’ He said it then went into a ‘no you’re not, yes I am’ routine. He said to me later that he was really unsure about fighting another election but he said there were a lot of people in the party saying to him ‘You cannot hand over to this guy. You’ve made your mark but we have to live with him after you’ve gone.’ TB had read the euro assessments himself and actually felt they were broadly positive, but Balls had put enough in there to
present as anti. TB said the second of the conversations was ‘monosyllabic’. He said he really didn’t know what to do. He said he had never wanted to fight a third election, but it was difficult to hand over to someone who was behaving in such a crazy way.

We also had the problem of Melbourne and CB’s shopping spree. A clothing company had asked her to look at some goods and she ended up with sixty-eight items and we had another freebie story to deal with. TB suggested to her that she get someone else to help her with the PR and she called David Hill. He, Hilary C and I were all of the view that it was best to do nothing, say nothing, and just wait till it went away. She had told TB that she hadn’t asked for any of this stuff and it just turned up at the hotel. We were heading for a rocky patch all round, and this didn’t help.

Iraq meeting. We were being warned of the possibility that Saddam had got rid of WMD and certainly most of the documentation, before the conflict. How big a problem was it if it turned out to be the case that we found none? Very difficult. It seemed the best we could do was defectors saying that it had all been destroyed. WMD were not being found and that was a problem. At the War Cabinet, Jack S and Clare had their standard row about the ORHA [post-conflict] operation. Clare said Jack wanted to throw people at the organisation ‘regardless of effect’ and Jack said she was talking nonsense. Clare was looking and sounding more and more ridiculous. TB did OK at the press conference and though the BBC decided early on that WMD was the story, later they moved to the domestic agenda stuff. Peter M called me, said re EMU he felt GB was doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. He felt we were being cowardly.

Iraq, and where were the WMD, was back as a problem. Yesterday John Scarlett called and asked me how big a problem would it be if we didn’t find any and had to rely on ex-scientists telling what had been there and what they knew. Big problem. I got a cab in to meet up with TB then into the car and off [to Russia]. He said he felt good at the moment but the GB situation was like a permanent dark shadow. ‘I just don’t know what to do about it.’ He said the problem was he just didn’t believe what he said to him any more. ‘I cannot fathom why he has to be so destructive.’ We had a tiny but revealing example. John McFall [Labour MP, chair of the Treasury Select Committee] told us – simply as a matter of fact, no agenda and no reason why it
shouldn’t have happened – that he had discussed the TSC report with GB. GB told TB he hadn’t. Why? TB said surely Gordon must realise he is making it harder not easier to hand over to him. What is unfathomable is that it is such a not clever strategy.

The visit had been Putin’s request and it was an OK thing to do but there were some very difficult issues, particularly divisions over the UN role. Iraq generally would be difficult. TB saw the press on the plane and I was warning them not to expect major league front-page stuff. But unbeknown to us Putin was gearing up for a direct big whack on WMD and plenty else besides. TB’s basic case at the moment was that the world had to come together. That the US was the only superpower and it was better that we tried to work together rather than try to be setting ourselves up as rivals. But France, Russia, maybe China and India wanted to check that power as a matter of policy.

On arrival TB, David M and Tony Bishop [interpreter] were taken up to the Putin dacha while the rest of us were taken to another building. We were hanging around with some of the Russian officials and it was a pretty tough atmosphere. When we did the pre-meeting with TB and Putin I was very clear that our press would be looking for the differences on Iraq and WMD. I asked Putin what he was likely to say. He said he would simply say we should carry on looking. But he definitely had the steely look in his eye and TB was looking a bit on edge. When it came to the event he let rip in the opening statement, made clear he doubted WMD were there and painted a comic picture of Saddam in a bunker somewhere sitting on his arsenal. TB was doing his best to look unfazed. The press were suddenly all terribly excited. Trevor Kavanagh [
Sun
] and Charles Reiss [
Evening Standard
] had big smiles over their faces as they took notes of what Vlad was saying. They sensed a diplo-disaster which of course it was, especially as Putin had invited TB and we thought we’d agreed lines.

David Manning was taken aback and angry, said he felt it had been deceitful of Putin to agree what he intended to say then go off on one like that, clearly pre-planned. He said the one-on-one session had been very tough and that Putin was in no mood to listen to pro-US messages. I noticed too when they came down that he just looked angrier than before, was less chatty and relaxed. He was also putting on a bit of weight and acting in a much grander fashion. He had his own stables now and had showed off the horses to TB who felt he was showing signs of becoming the traditional Russian leader in terms of interest in lifestyle, luxury and so on. The press conference was pretty stunning. The mood when we regrouped was very chilly. TB
took me to one side, said how do we deal with that? I said not much we can do to stop them going into overdrive.

TB said ‘I almost felt like interrupting him and saying “Hey – you invited me out here. I didn’t expect to get stuffed by you like that.”’ Then TB, Vlad, the interpreters and I were taken into a little side room. TB said to me, very deliberately and inviting absolute honesty, ‘What did you make of that?’ I said it was very explosive, our media would be very excited. Putin looked a mix of surly and worried. He could sense TB was angry but he was also totally unapologetic. He said the US had created this situation. In ignoring the UN they had created danger. They were saying there may be rules, but not for us. Time and again he made comparisons with the situation he faced in Georgia, used as a base for terrorists against Russia. ‘What would you say if we took out Georgia or sent in the B-52 bombers to wipe out the terror camps?’ And what are they planning next – is it Syria, Iran, Korea? ‘I bet they haven’t told you,’ he added with a rather unpleasant curl of the lip. ‘Also there is no consistency. Saudi and Pakistan are problems but for different reasons the Americans prop them up’. He said other parts of the world felt pressure to go for Israel. He said he didn’t support that ‘but these are dangerous games’. He said the Americans’ enemy was anyone who didn’t support them at the time. Anywhere from Algeria to Pakistan. Then what about the new powers like India and China, do their views matter, or is it only America?

TB had given as good as he got at the press conference and did so again at the dinner once he realised that the diplomatic approach was not exactly working. He said there was no grand US plan for global domination. There was a series of choices. On MEPP they were deciding whether to engage or not. On Korea they were deciding whether to engage diplomatically. On a lot of other issues they were deciding whether to approach them on a unilateral or multilateral basis. ‘We have to help them choose the multilateral route. But you have to understand that September 11 changed their psychology and it changed Bush’s psychology personally. Before, anti-Americanism was just an irritant that they put up with. Now it became a threat.’ Putin said that meant anyone who disagreed with them on these choices was a threat. ‘That is ridiculous. I am a Russian. I cannot agree with the Americans on everything. My public won’t let me for a start. I would not survive two years if I did that. We often have different interests.’ TB said but you have to build a strategic partnership with them. He said he was tired of trying. ‘They don’t listen. They only hear what they want to hear. Some of them are crazy.’

Putin said the South Koreans had told them the Americans had said they were prepared to use nuclear weapons on the North. Crazy. He said they would end up killing people in the South too, ‘and that is on our border’. Vlad was in full flow. He said they had asked to run reconnaissance flights along the Russian border during the Iraq crisis ‘as a counter-terrorism measure – what nonsense. It was to intimidate us. We told them it was an unfriendly act. They did it.’ TB asked him if Bush knew and Vlad said his people knew, but the question was why did they do it? Because they think they can do what they want. Others have to operate by the rules but not them. China might feel it should be able to sort out Taiwan. But it feels constrained by the UN, by international opinion. India and Pakistan might like to set off nuclear weapons at each other but they feel constrained. Time and again he referred to Georgia and Chechnya and said ‘Why can’t I go in alone – because of international pressure. Yet there are people threatening our people, killing people on our streets.’ TB said Iraq was different because there were nineteen outstanding UNSCRs on Iraq. The UN had made its demands and for once they should be upheld. Putin said the US was thousands of miles from Iraq. So was the UK. Saddam was a monster but he was not a direct threat.

TB went back to his argument about September 11. Putin went back to his line that if we were saying anyone who disagreed was a threat that was ridiculous and dangerous. TB was pretty taken aback by the vehemence. Normally there would be a bit of levity, a bit of banter, or if things were heavy I might throw in something lighter. But this was not that kind of meeting. I could see David [Manning] feeling more and more intense about the whole thing. We agreed afterwards that it had been a real privilege to have been in on a discussion like that, where the raw politics and feeling of a country like Russia came pouring out. There were even short periods of silence as we ate – caviar, a nice enough fish plate then some horrible cold meats including one that looked like dogshit and tasted pretty dreadful too. Then a nice mix of ice creams. Lots of vodka being poured into different glasses but little of it was drunk.