The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (14 page)

Schroeder’s contribution was more about how they could help build a post-Taliban government. Jospin chipped in with a question about the post-Taliban regime and before he had even got the words out, Chirac interrupted and in the most patronising way imaginable said ‘Can we finish on the military phase first please?’ Chirac also asked Schroeder direct whether they would send special forces. Schroeder said if I was asked, I’d say yes, but I hope not to be asked. Germany was in a particularly difficult position and he pointed out that it would have to be put to parliament first as a fundamental change in their foreign policy. Even when he was onside though, Chirac would always make sure we knew his real opinions about the Yanks in particular, as in when he said that ‘irrefutable proof’ of anything was not necessarily proof if it came from the CIA.

It was a pretty odd meeting, not least because of the rather poky venue, the fact that there was not enough coffee, that the carpets were a bit thin and the noise from outside loud. TB said he felt there had been a shift in Israel’s attitude to the UK and the US, and a big change in the US attitude to Israel. If Arafat made a positive move, e.g. handing over detainees . . . Chirac interrupted again, saying he would
be assassinated. Schroeder said he had spoken to [Ariel] Sharon who referred to Arafat as ‘my Taliban’. That is how they see them. It was by now like Babel’s tower, with so many interpreters translating between three languages at once. TB still felt we had to construct a gesture from Arafat.

The rest of the day was by and large a waste of time for me. I had Tom Kelly to deal with the Ghent business and so instead I focused on planning the Saudi visit. Then a call from the
Mail
asking whether it was true that Prince Charles was to be a special envoy to the Saudis. It was frustrating. They clearly wanted to help, and to get a ‘Charles joins war effort’ story out there, but it was an odd way to go about it – briefing that we have asked them to do something when actually we’d talked about something else.

TB was bored with the summit deliberations and came out for a chat. As ever, they had not skimped on the food for all the under-worked hangers-on, with national dishes from each of the fifteen member states. We watched Louis Michel [Belgian foreign minister] stuffing his face. I reminded TB it was part of the deal that I didn’t have to come to these wretched European summits any more. He said to see this as part of the Arab media brief. The main story was the Big Three summit upsetting everyone else but TB was unapologetic. The press conference was straightforward, they did the future of Europe over dinner, then off to the plane. TB said Chirac had been interesting because he so clearly wanted to be on the same page with us on this. TB recalled what [Margaret] Thatcher had told him – ‘The Germans are big but they feel so guilty they don’t use their power, you can’t trust the French, the Italians are only good for clothes, the Dutch are the most like us but too close to the Germans. But I do like the Danes.’

Up early and off to see Dad who was looking very frail. TB called as I drove up, still adamant we should stay robust on Jo Moore. I agreed it would be even worse to get rid of her now, but she must be miserable as hell. He was really worried about the Middle East, feared after his conversation with [Ariel] Sharon that after the seven-day mourning of the tourism minister [Rehavam Ze’evi, assassinated by Palestinian gunmen], the Israelis would go into real battle against the Palestinians. I got Godric to brief the Mondays that we were closer to seeing UK ground forces in action. I hadn’t read the papers first thing, and I had a flick through when we got back home, a bit alarmed at how much ‘spin’ was back in the news because of Jo.

Godric’s briefing went big, and alongside the Americans’ weekend briefing on the [US Army] Rangers going in, there was a feeling of the temperature rising. However, the feeling of drift in the War Cabinet was grim. It must by now have become clear to John Scarlett, C etc. how different the mood was in the meetings with the broader group of ministers. John did his best to put over a sense of progress, with hints that Mullah Omar was worried, and reports on the sense of shock among the Taliban about how the attacks had intensified. CDS gave his usual very downbeat assessment, focusing mainly on problems. He said we were not advancing as fast as we should be, but we were looking at at least five more days for Mazar and that Kabul would not be taken before winter/Ramadan. John Vereker said we were still not talking catastrophe on the humanitarian front but we were just two and a half weeks from winter.

Afterwards, TB said he felt that the morning meeting was becoming too big, and he was worried about what might be leaked. He also said he felt Geoff and CDS were too negative, constantly saying what they couldn’t do. ‘I want my military to be straining at the leash, us having to hold them back.’ He then told me to get a story planted somewhere that Boyce was doing a great job. He said my visit to the States tomorrow was vital, that I had to persuade them of the need for a central hub. It was like putting together a general election campaign, required that level of organisation and detail. I had to persuade the Americans how important it was to think beyond their own public opinion.

I was now working close to flat out on getting the Arab media unit up and running properly. Arab opinion was saying this unit would have no impact and was just propaganda. Julian Braithwaite’s view was the SIS, or some of them, were feeling vulnerable, wanted to feel they were the only people who really got this stuff. It certainly read like something designed to deter us. John Kerr had been a fantastic support. I went over with him to meet the new team, who seemed pretty bright but I made clear we would need more still. Jo Moore was moving up the agenda again and my worry was that she would weaken in the face of all this. I got home fairly early as it was Rory’s birthday tomorrow, but was dead tired again. The news was all [Gerry] Adams after he had called on the IRA to disarm which was a big moment.

BBC were getting more and more outrageous, Taliban claims were being treated pretty much the same as anything we said followed by
endless Fergal Keane [journalist] emoting. At the 8am meeting, John Scarlett said all the terror camps had been demolished and I said why on earth haven’t we done a big presentation on that? TB asked CDS at one point what size of an area was covered by ‘the front line’. There was a long pause and he said quietly ‘I don’t really know I’m afraid.’ TB asked him what kind of advice he should be giving to Bush. Boyce said it depends if they are prepared to go through Ramadan. TB said let’s assume they are not. ‘Mmm, mmm, it’s very difficult.’ If you were to sum up his contribution it was to say we couldn’t take Mazar, the NA were impossible to deal with, the Americans were not being totally open. He had the top special forces guy there who sounded much more like he knew what he was on about, but who was also none too optimistic. The NA were finding it harder than we feared to take Mazar and we didn’t necessarily have all the people there that we needed. On the military, the diplomatic, and the humanitarian, we just weren’t where we needed to be.

Kerr felt Colin Powell’s Middle East vision was wishful thinking unless they have a lot better intelligence than we do about the current state of Israeli thinking. TB asked David Manning and me to go through at the end of the meeting and said he was seized by how important our visit was. ‘You have got to get a grip of the show.’ I was tying up loose ends before getting ready to leave. Robin Cook came to see me before doing his first on-camera briefing for the Arab press. He was clearly a bit baleful about not being Foreign Secretary. I told him I was going to Washington with Jack and he said ‘Don’t jump on my grave.’ He did one of his chirpy ‘won’t let you downs’ and off he went.

I left for the Savoy where I was doing a ‘turn the tables’ interview with Jeremy Paxman [BBC
Newsnight
presenter] and had decided on a twin track – keep asking about his earnings and throw in general-knowledge questions about people from the smaller countries involved in the crisis. It seemed to go fine. Lots of nice charity types there. I teased him into whacking [John] Humphrys [BBC
Today
presenter] a bit, accepting the superficiality of TV as a medium, and he wasn’t great on the general-knowledge stuff.

TB was at a session at the Commonwealth Club with all Cabinet ministers and their permanent secretaries in a kind of big bonding session. I went to meet up with Jack. He said TB had been excellent, really thought about it and the whole event had been a huge success. He then added that it had all been the idea of Alice [Perkins, Straw’s wife, a civil servant]. In the car, and later on the flight, he and I had a series of really good conversations. He was very down on GB, felt
that the mad streak had got worse and the combination of TB rising into a different league to the rest of them plus economic worries had put GB in a very bad frame of mind. Said he was loathed by many of his colleagues. On TB, he felt he didn’t do enough in Parliament. A lot of our chat was about kids, football, stuff unrelated to politics and Jack was definitely still a fully paid-up member of the human race. He, I, David Manning, Simon McDonald [Straw’s private secretary] and one of the coppers were up in first class when Alison [Blackshaw, AC’s personal assistant] came down from club to do some work, some of the other passengers complained – tossers – so I went back with her to club.

I did a note to TB re his
Telegraph
interview and PMQs [Prime Minister’s Questions] tomorrow in which I felt he needed to give a longer than usual update on overall strategy, the military, MEPP, thinking on the Taliban. For the bulk of the flight I was working on a note for the White House setting out ideas on a draft communications plan and structures. I said in terms the thinking needed to be on a par with the thinking applied to elections with many of the same functions. Jack and David read it through, made a few comments and were basically both happy with it. It was largely modelled on Kosovo with the Arab–Muslim angle meaning a different kind of response was required. Jack travelled with his own polish and made a big play of shining up my shoes.

We landed to be met by Tony Brenton [deputy head of mission, UK Embassy] and two pieces of news – the IRA had delivered, and Burnley had beaten Crystal Palace [1–0]. We went briefly to our ambassador’s residence before I went out to a restaurant to meet Dan Bartlett [deputy to Karen Hughes] who with Karen and Ari [Fleischer, White House press secretary] was part of the press triumvirate during Bush’s campaign. He seemed a bit nervy but seemed a nice enough guy. I had not really been aware of just how much the anthrax situation was convulsing the system and it meant Afghanistan was not nearly so much in the news as it was at home. I did feel though that I was pushing at a fairly open door. He said Bush was up for it, realised we had to make change. At one or two points he stated openly that they knew they were not up to their game, that they thought too much on American lines, not enough about opinion outside, and they were happy to take all the advice and help going. He was good at analysing problems – e.g. how the Arab media viewed us and why – but their solutions weren’t that great. He gave me a paper from Karl Rove [senior adviser to Bush] that I think was meant to be their response to the brainstorm I had given to Karen, but it was not what
I expected. I think the basic problem was that they genuinely didn’t understand anti-Americanism. They couldn’t see how, given that in this instance they had been the victim, and given all the help they had tried to administer around the world, they were not more popular. So it made them more insular, and a lot of their ideas were actually about things that would simply strengthen their standing at home but do nothing for them overseas necessarily.

I was walking a fairly difficult line, because basically TB wanted me to try to take this over, but at the same time it was important not to give them the sense we thought they couldn’t do this. I got a bit close to the mark when I showed him a polling presentation from Philip [Gould] which showed that quite a lot of Bush’s statements had gone down really badly. He seemed surprised, even a little hurt. He said Condi was totally on board for trying to improve presentation and if I had her and Karen onside, I would get the president. I was in two minds about giving over the various papers I had done there and then but in the end did so and agreed they would form the basis of our discussions tomorrow. I got back to the residence, felt I had made a good opening. Stayed up for a long chat with Jack and [Sir Christopher] Meyer who said that the US military gave no clear sense of strategy. Sounded familiar. Alison came in with the cuttings from home, including some pretty big reviews of my session with Paxman, widely judged to be a straight win.

Washington. I couldn’t sleep so I was up and about at 4.30 and chatted to TB in London before his
Telegraph
interview. The American papers underlined how totally obsessed they were with anthrax. It took up the first fifteen minutes of US bulletins. It confirmed me in the view that they were unlikely to have been thinking enough about the stuff I was trying to persuade them of. My first meeting was with Karen Hughes. I was accompanied by Bob Peirce [embassy press staff]. We arrived at the White House, a brief wait then up through the warren of steps and little offices and through to see her. It was a fairly small office, lots of pictures of her and GWB. She looked a bit shell-shocked, sounded it too. She said this was all very different to running a Texan political campaign. We went through the notes I had sent over, the importance of third parties, who their key communicators were, how to improve message co-ordination between the various bits of government, polling, Muslim outreach, the UN. I said why didn’t GWB visit a few mosques? Who did they have in the US Muslim community who could be built up into being the kind of people
TV wanted to hear? Who were the right people to put on the Arab media and would they understand the need to use a slightly different language?