The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (27 page)

It was a pretty tortuous exchange, indicative of how deep-rooted the problems were, but it did mean we got what we wanted in terms of a tough anti-terrorism statement and even our media took it as a bit of a breakthrough for TB. The media event was strong. Then drinks, then dinner. I was next to General [Muhammad] Aziz Khan [chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pakistan] and the finance minister. Their general feeling was that India was in a box and didn’t know how to get out of it. It was funny too how both sides seemed to talk of the other as equals, even though India was so much bigger and more powerful.

We had done pretty well though on both legs, then to the airport and back on the C130 for the flight to Baghram. The troops were loving it and the press were genuinely excited about the trip. We flew in total darkness to Baghram, with only the occasional flash of green from night sights. As we arrived, it was pitch black. TB and CB went out to a red carpet, [Hamid] Karzai [chairman of the Transitional Administration], the band playing the barely discernible tune of welcome, and general chaos to which I added, stepping down from the plane, when my briefcase, even though the combination lock was on, suddenly opened and papers were flying all over the place.
Thankfully, the hacks were all being taken off the other end and didn’t notice as David [Manning], Anna [Wechsberg] and I scrabbled around using hands, feet and anything else to trap the paper and get, hopefully, all of it back. TB was now standing with an Afghan shouting into his face in what seemed to be part of the welcome. We were then taken to a line of armoured vehicles and the Special Branch advance guy introduced David and me to the special forces who were going to be looking after us.

The drive was slow, over endless tank traps, eventually reaching the old Russian barracks. TB had a one-on-one with Karzai, said he was very upbeat, probably too much, but he was clearly pleased that TB had come, particularly given the genuine security risks, and there was a good atmosphere between them. As we came out of the meeting, into the darkened corridor, Keith Lowe [protection officer] took me to one side and said ‘You should probably tell the PM that the Chancellor’s baby has died.’ There is something about a baby’s death. Even the cops, who can turn pretty much anything into a source of laughter, seemed really saddened, and were explaining to the Afghans what had happened. I told TB in between meetings. I said I’m afraid there’s bad news, and he knew straight away what it was, and asked us to try to fix a call.

We had to move to a bigger room for a meeting with eight of the ministers from the interim government. One look around the room was enough to tell you what a nightmare job Karzai had trying to hold things together. TB and Karzai said a few words of welcome and then opened things up. They were a pretty aggressive bunch. One of them was the double of Orson Welles [heavyweight actor] and said they needed long-term help. His tone of voice suggested he didn’t think we would deliver it. There was another guy who looked like something out of the Taliban and who spent most of the meeting trying to stare us out. One or two were dressed in Western-style suits but they said little. Karzai was definitely a cut above but he really had his work cut out. They had cobbled together from somewhere a collection of chairs and tables, and laid out a rather sad collection of sweets that nobody touched. TB said Britain would stay with them for the long term, and work to make sure that the reconstruction conference in Tokyo [January 21–22, to be co-chaired by Japan, US, EU and Saudi Arabia] went well.

Karzai said Afghanistan was well rid of the terrible leadership that went before. Abdullah said they were effectively reconstructing a country from scratch. Karzai obviously picked up on the somewhat negative tone of some of the ministerial contributions and concluded
the meeting by saying they were all ‘so glad that such a distinguished person has come to see us, taken the risk, you have demonstrated such goodwill. When the Afghan people get to hear that you visited us, they will be proud and thrilled.’ One of the special forces guys said to me ‘Welcome to bandit country.’ We drove, as slowly and painfully as before, to the special forces HQ, to put a phone call through to Sue Nye [GB’s personal aide]. She confirmed that the baby was dead and that it had now been announced publicly. TB was genuinely cut up, said it was a horrible thing to have to go through, and even worse with all the attention on it. He was having to talk quite loudly to be heard. I could sense that this collection of real hard nuts from the SAS and the SBS were a bit bemused to have their prime minister in there having a near-weepy phone call. He was due to be doing the press, so we went over how to respond to the baby’s death whilst also covering the substance of the visit. He was pretty discombobulated and wanted further confirmation and assurance that it had been announced. Karzai arrived and we filled him in on what was happening, explaining why he would have to address it. Karzai showed a deft touch, taking his hat off when TB spoke later re GB.

We were taken to meet some of the real heroes from both SAS and SBS. The first presentation was from a guy who had been part of a team following a tip that OBL was in a certain cave. They had ended up living for days without supplies, having to make do with what they found, including a thirty-hour period in which the only consumption between four of them, apart from stuff off trees, was a small bottle of water. They had been calling on bombers and fighting their way, hand to hand, towards where they were going. But he had gone by the time they got there. Then a Geordie who had been at the fort at Mazar, buried under rubble after an American bomb went astray, got out, involved in all sorts of fighting, got out the body of the American guy who had been killed there, eventually flushing out the al-Qaeda people by pumping in freezing water. He told it all with a mix of real pride and deadpan humour. These guys were genuinely impressive people. Their living quarters here, let alone when they were out and about, were incredibly basic and yet there was an enthusiasm there that was incredible. None of them seemed boastful, or demanding of credit or praise. They just explained very factually what they did. One of the most impressive was the smallest, a Scottish guy so small I was surprised he was even allowed in the Armed Forces. We were then given a presentation by [Major General John] McColl on ISAF [of which McColl, a UK soldier, was leader]. He too was impressive, not least the way he worked out the details of the
military technical agreements and the way he was establishing authority in Kabul, e.g. by troops being visible at DFID projects, being seen to do good infrastructure work. Once again, we were confronted by the ingenuity and the resilience of our troops. TB said he needed a pee and we were taken out, up a field, to a series of upturned tubes into the ground.

Back on the C130, I met the SIS guy who had actually been the first person into Kabul, even if John Simpson had never met him. He too combined modesty with a very matter-of-fact ability to describe astonishing events. We flew out in total darkness, with a flare going by every now and then. Eventually, I managed to sleep. We landed in Oman and were glad to be transferred to the million times more comfortable 777. I called Ian Austin, and later wrote a letter to GB, as did TB and Cherie. TB briefed us on the one-on-one parts of his various meetings over dinner. He felt we had achieved things in India and Pakistan that actually made conflict less likely. But he was beginning to take seriously the stuff about him being more abroad than home, and talking about pulling out of his Africa tour. I felt that would be a mistake because it would look weak and defensive.

We landed, straight into the office, and back to all the crap. TB had told Jonathan he wanted to pull the Africa trip. Liz Lloyd [policy adviser] said the four leaders [of Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone] had cancelled a dinner with Chirac in Paris to be there for him, so he couldn’t. My first morning meeting of the year, as we went through the media brief, was like swimming through shit. Virtually every paper over every story in knocking mode. TB, the great man abroad as seen overseas, was being whacked at home over absolutely everything. It was easy to dismiss as the usual media frenzy, but it must be causing us political problems.

I went up to the flat to discuss PMQs. He said we had to resist the
Groundhog Day
²
feeling, that it was the greatest danger we got bored or started to let these bastards get us down. It had always been a struggle, always would be, and we had to stick at it and really get going. PMQs was OK if not brilliant. Transport was going big and then it emerged [Peter] Hain had said we had the worst railways in Europe, which went straight to the top of the news. Very annoying and stupid. JP livid, said what is it with people like that? TB had spoken to GB who wanted him to go to the funeral on Friday.

At the morning meeting, I made sure the Foreign Office knew how pissed off everyone was at Hain, which was still getting a fair bit of play. War Cabinet was largely India/Pakistan, where is OBL, and some domestic stuff. CDS said if India and Pakistan go to war, we will be up the creek without a paddle. Geoff said there may have to be limited compulsory call-up of Territorial Army reserves. TB gave a pretty gloomy assessment re India/Pakistan, said Vajpayee was really upset at the way Musharraf treated him. Military dispositions remained the same, with more than a million troops there [Kashmir]. He assessed that the Indians believed that they could absorb 500,000 deaths. Pakistani capability was far greater than the Indians believed.

Cabinet was mainly a discussion re public services, and lots of people defending Byers. TB said the media were determined to give us a rough ride and would focus not on things we had done but on things we hadn’t done. We shouldn’t pretend everything is perfect but we shouldn’t let them get away with the impression nothing is being achieved. We should be confident. Byers said the attacks over rail were an attack on the whole reform agenda, we had to be robust, emphasise the decades of underinvestment and failed privatisation and stick to the ten-year plan. He said he was delighted to have given colleagues a bit of a break from media heat. Both Reid and Jack Straw said the attacks on Steve were attacks on all of us and it was important we didn’t allow these issues to be personalised but stuck together. Milburn echoed that, said it was railways today, could be any other service tomorrow because this was about an ideological assault on public services. Blunkett felt the Tories were beginning to get their act together and IDS was deliberately undermining confidence in the public services as a way of showing us as out of date. He felt they had hit on something and that disillusion went quite deep. It was a good discussion. And people were very supportive of Steve.

TB felt we had two years of struggle and provided improvements were clear at the end of that, we would win this argument. Their desire is to say the public services are hopeless and therefore we should return to the agenda of the 80s. Our argument is that through investment and reform we can build them up. In the afternoon, we had a four-hour strategy meeting with my main people plus other heads of department, but I felt just as I kept doing the groundhog stuff, so did they. TB chaired. We did agree TB should chair four new informal ministerial groups, on Europe, public services, rights and responsibilities, and also what someone called an ‘ism’ group, the
need to knit everything we are doing together round a coherent set of beliefs. People kept arguing on the need to be more radical without being specific or clear as to what they meant.

TB felt that in health Milburn had come out clearly as a reformer and that had changed things within the department. He felt there was a danger Estelle [Morris] was opting for a quiet life. He was tempted to go back to a big speech on the lines of the one he had planned to make last September 11 [to the Trades Union Congress], about why [public service] reform was so important. Fiona and I both said afterwards it was the same people making the same points they had been making for years. We needed new people and we needed new ways of working. A lot of it was about the way TB worked with Cabinet colleagues. He was collegiate in some ways, and they would all say pretty easy to work with, but he didn’t really let go. The meeting drifted into a discussion of specific areas like [banning fox] hunting and Lords reform. On both, TB was worried about buggering up the whole of our programme if we weren’t careful.

Jeremy [Heywood] did a fascinating presentation showing that we were actually spending less of our GDP on public spending than [Margaret] Thatcher, if you looked at the figures in a certain way. Andrew Adonis [head of the Policy Unit] said we were wasting billions on GB’s pet projects. Peter Hyman [policy adviser and speech-writer] felt we were deluding ourselves if we thought that TB would change his ways. He was wedded to his informal style, he let colleagues roam free only provided they were roaming in the direction he wanted, he would never go full frontal on the media, and he would always be as interested in positioning as in policy or people. He was what he was, and he would never change.

TB spoke to GB a couple of times, said he sounded devastated. He said it would change him fundamentally, but nobody could be sure how. Alistair Darling told me that GB had spent the whole time she was alive talking to the baby. He too felt this would change GB. Fiona and I were not so sure, felt it would increase his anger, his belief that TB got everything easy and he was a victim. Chris Meyer came to see me, lobbying for a seven-day trip to the US with lots of big events, speeches, TB being showered with prizes. It all sounded totally OTT, and not necessary.

TB called me on his way back from the baby’s funeral to say it had been a nice service but with a very odd audience. He had been quite shocked to see how many journalists were there, including [Paul]
Dacre [
Mail
editor]. I said I couldn’t imagine why they would have wanted anyone but really close friends there, and TB said different people react differently in grief. He said he went back to the house after the service and GB had been very warm, and that it almost reminded him of the days when they had been genuinely close.