The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (77 page)

He filled me in on another bad meeting with GB yesterday re tuition fees. He felt GB’s problem was that he saw everything through politics rather than life, so the child tax credit was a policy aimed at women, but actually showed a lack of understanding about how modern families work. I went back for a long meeting with David Wilkinson [Cabinet Office] and Bob Phillis [chief executive, Guardian Media Group], who was going to chair the GICS review. Bob felt, probably rightly, that I was not seeing Mike Granatt enough. David was very supportive, saying that I was expected by the PM and others to deliver strategy but didn’t have all the levers. Mike had said I was on the bridge with TB when he was in the engine room. But I still felt it didn’t really work.

At 5.15, TB, Jonathan, David, Sally and I went over to the MoD for a briefing on Iraq. CDS and all the other chiefs were there in uniform. We sat round three sides of the room. CDS said they expected Bush to make a decision for February 15 and they would go within twelve days or so to a massive air, sea and land operation. It was going to be called ‘shock and awe’, and the scale would reflect that. There would be hundreds of plane sorties from day one, aimed at wiping out his infrastructure and playing for a ‘house of cards’ effect. They went through where UK forces were most likely to be involved, taking out his defences close to the border. Substantial numbers of our ships and planes. A total of 42,000 UK forces possibly, 300,000-plus from the US. Then a slideshow briefing showed the scale of the attacks on the whole country, moving up to the capital. Oilfields were to be seized straight away, which, with the conspiracy theory about oil, would be difficult presentationally. [Admiral Sir] Alan West, ex-intelligence now naval commander [First Sea Lord], said there would be so much going on in the first day or so, that the international media would not know where to go.

TB pressed on whether Saddam would use chemical or biological weapons. They said they were buried so he might not be able to activate them quickly, but that was the reason [General Tommy] Franks had gone for the doctrine of overwhelming force. They believed Saddam was working on an assumption that it would be done by air strikes first, and then move in on land. It was interesting to see how much more fluent and confident Mike Boyce was in this setting. They knew the oilfield situation was difficult, and would require careful presentation. They said it was the right thing to do to prevent ecological disaster because Saddam might well go for blowing up his own oilfields as a way of causing chaos in the markets.

The planning was clearly well advanced, but it was still unclear whether the politics would allow any of it. But if this was going to happen as quickly as it seemed, TB said, then the work on aftermath questions had to happen now too. The intelligence people, including the defence guys, were pretty strongly of the view that Saddam would use WMD if he could. They warned of the inevitability both of civilian deaths and casualties of our own, but they felt in the initial attacks it was likely we would lose more through normal exercises than by being killed by Iraqis. They felt we would be able to strike very accurately but acknowledged the Attorney General might have difficulty in agreeing to some of the targets we would expect to hit. The scale of bombing meant that there were bound to be civilian deaths. TB also emphasised the need to get in place proper humanitarian support.

It was a pretty heavy-duty scene. It took place in the new MoD buildings, with everything very carefully laid out, typed name plates, tea and biscuits that nobody seemed to touch. On the way in, it had been like one of those scenes from darkly lit political thrillers where politicians and military and entourage are marching purposefully down a corridor, very little conversation, the only noise heels on floor, people walking too fast. It was pretty clear as we got into the cars and headed back to Number 10 that the Americans were going for this and TB had looked more nervous, particularly about the idea of UK military casualties and the possibility of large numbers of civilian casualties. It was pretty clear the Treasury were at it again. There seemed to be a pretty clear briefing against Charles’ student finance proposals in
The Times
and against the Olympic bid in the
Guardian
.

Jonathan’s weekly meeting mainly on asylum and more ‘why can’t we just sort this out?’ TB had met with front-line [Home Office] staff yesterday and regaled them with stories of people who were simply taking the piss in their attempts to come in, including the current fashion, which was to say they were from Iraq when they couldn’t even speak the language. The main focus later would be the Iraq situation as Blix inspectors found shells and, though not yet public, notes of the nuclear programme. Stan Greenberg and Philip came in to do a presentation on polling. We were still seven points ahead, though the Tories did better on certain to vote. On the thermometer ratings, GB was slightly ahead of TB, while Bush was nestling between IDS and asylum seekers. When we briefed TB, his reaction was to say it could be a lot worse. We had been kicked about for months. The Cherie business had dominated pre-Christmas. On education we had
been hit by the A-levels fiasco. Crime and asylum are gut issues that the people don’t feel we get. And on Iraq, millions think we aren’t listening. He said we have to win in Iraq and we have to be seen to be winning on crime and asylum.

Cabinet was fine. On Iraq, TB set out where we were. Trying to make the UN route work. Inspectors in there. Report back on January 27. He said the Russians were closer to the Americans than they say publicly, while the French do not particularly want to be left on the outside. But it was going to be tough. In the meantime, we build up the troops, and make sure that if it does come to conflict we are able to get it over quickly. Jack was pretty confident about the UN process, pointed out that a lot of people said we would never get a resolution in the first place but we did, on the strength of the case. Robin C said IDS had really sunk to a low point. He [RC] said we were in a tremendous position on the UN, ‘thanks to you’, he said to TB. He said the prospect of getting a second resolution was stronger if we do not rule out saying we may do it without one. One or two of them talked about the problem that Bush gave us with public opinion, but TB was clear we had to stay close publicly to maximise influence privately. There was a bit of criticism of communications strategy, with a feeling that because only two or three people were out there talking about it, the assumption was that the rest of the Cabinet were opposed.

At the end of the discussion JP did a very passionate wind-up. He said the discussion showed there was no real division ‘so let’s stop pretending there is’. He said the briefings and the ‘talking out the side of the mouth’ have to stop. He said the party doesn’t like the idea of intervention but sometimes we have to make difficult judgements. If TB has the courage to put the case, we should get behind him and not give the press the opportunity to say there is division. Even Clare was reasonably measured. TB closed by setting out where he had asked for more work to be done, in three different areas – first, what offer we can make to the Iraqi people, e.g. re territorial integrity, lifting of sanctions, future prosperity; second, aftermath and the UN role in that; third, the unexpected and in particular the risk of WMD being used against our troops, or environmental catastrophe around oilfields.

John R left early to do the FPA briefing. TB was in a stronger place after a combination of the press conference, the PLP and PMQs. But the real discussion today came at the committee on the student finance review. Fourteen ministers there, with JP in the chair. Charles C put his case, and then a lot of the others expressed support. But then GB really laid into it, non-stop for twenty minutes, saying it was unfair,
regressive, wasteful and not what the Labour Party was about. Charles gave as good as he got but was shocked when DB came in and backed GB. JP said it was clear they couldn’t resolve it, it would have to be referred to TB who would have to decide. The whole thing had got very bloody. A lot of the things that GB said to TB privately were now coming out publicly for the first time, and the circle having been so wide, it was bound to leak soon. JP wanted to brief TB, said there were real differences and he would have to decide on the basic questions of fairness and the politics. TB was clear that GB was now really just on a mission to stall, paralyse, hold back. Charles then came in, really angry, said he had just told Ed Balls that he saw GB’s intervention as a declaration of war. He told TB it was totally unacceptable behaviour and he should not allow it. GB was just trying to bulldoze his way to a solution that Charles strongly believed was wrong, and he felt TB had to stand up against him. TB headed off to [address Labour Party members in] Scotland after lunch.

I was working in the office when Charles called just after 4 to say that the details of the discussions had been leaked to the BBC. He was all a bit garbled and hyper but he wanted to go up and do a lobby briefing to put his perspective. I said he must be careful that this didn’t just become a personality spat, but a serious issues-based analysis. I called JP who was in Milton Keynes. He agreed to Charles’ briefing plan so long as it was treated as a genuine leak that he had to deal with, as opposed to the deliberate flaming of a row. When it came, it was actually not that bad for us. TB was reasonably calm about it. The storm passed fairly quickly before the news broke that Blix’s people had found shells.
³
I spoke to Dan Bartlett and we agreed we would respond cautiously and let the media do the hoo-ha. Earlier, on the conference call, there was a pretty torrid row between Torie Clarke [assistant secretary of defense for public affairs] and Richard Boucher re next steps on the WMD debate, no doubt reflecting the argument going on higher up the food chain.

If it hadn’t been for the UN inspectors’ discovery of chemical shells, and TB meeting Blix today, the student finance row would have given us massive problems. Ian Austin claimed that the Treasury were really angry, that GB was furious that the discussions had been leaked, but nobody believed him. The fact that the
Guardian
was leading with a
GB triumph, and that JP was wrongly stated as supporting him, left little doubt where it was all coming from. I had a long chat with JP who was outraged, and happy for us to let it be known he had not taken sides. He said GB had always operated like this and of course it was being put over as a pretty acute political problem between TB and GB. GB was setting himself up as the protector of the ‘real’ party interest. We chatted for an hour or so and he was clearly very onside at the moment, provided we kept in touch with him.

We did a conference call – TB, Jonathan, Sally, Godric and I – and 1. agreed we would say that we press ahead with publication next week, and 2. the arguments to put, namely that we had pretty much agreed everything, that universities could be able to charge more, that payment would not be upfront and the question was whether the individual paid back through future earnings or whether it was done through a collective pool. I did a visit to the CIC to get them better geared up on Iraq. OK but not brilliant. The FCO were not engaging as well as they had been. Later, Colin Powell said things would be clear in two weeks.

JP called me later, after I had gone to bed, said that he had spoken to GB after our conversation and things had to be resolved. The leaking of the discussions, and the nature of them even more so, had made it a very political issue and TB had to be supported. GB said to JP he intended to write something down overnight as a possible solution, and clearly wanted to calm it all down now. JP said he would talk to TB tomorrow. He was back in the referee role and clearly pretty fed up about it.

Five miles on the treadmill, knee and ankle really bad. JP called again, said he had a pretty clear idea that GB had done the lion’s share of the briefing. He said the problem we were getting into was that TB was worrying about legacy and GB only really cared about taking over and was frustrated the whole time. We had to get them to get their act together. Charles C put round an excellent note on the access issue, and the White Paper itself was in far better shape now. It also became public that the Blix inspectors had found nuclear papers which went pretty big.
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We were in a much better place all round than a week ago, but it still wasn’t great.

David Hill did us proud on
Frost
, plugging the
Observer
piece on the marathon and the [paper’s] leader on Iraq. He was very nice about me, saying it was because I was good at my job that I was maligned. ‘Agreed, agreed,’ said Frost. Charles C was fine [on
Frost
] but he gave the figures people would have to pay back which was likely to cause a storm. There was a rash of dreadful asylum stories in the Sundays and DB decided to go on
The World this Weekend
to face them down. TB said he was looking forward to ‘my reconstruction of the government’. He said he hadn’t spoken to GB over the weekend and didn’t intend to. He was simply not going to be halted any more, but it wasn’t possible to do anything pre any action in Iraq. It was a terrible thing to say, he said, but he really did believe now that GB did not want him to succeed. Tessa came round later and said that when she finally got to see GB about the Olympic bid last week, she felt like she was being beaten up behind the bike sheds. He took her to bits, blaming her for getting the issue up in lights so that he would get the blame. She said he was so vile that even he recognised it and phoned her later to apologise.

Charles Clarke’s interview on
Frost
had got up the issue of £21,000 and put TB in a total flap, made worse because during the day GB sent a long letter to members of DA [Cabinet Committee on Domestic Affairs] setting out objections, and a side letter to TB on the politics of it all and how we were ‘getting it all wrong’. Andrew Adonis, Peter H and I went over to see Charles. You got the sense developing of something a bit personal between them, which we had to calm. Charles admitted that he had made a mistake on
Frost
by saying £21k. We needed to get over a message about opportunity and access and also spell out scenarios of how it would all work for different kids from different backgrounds. It also needed to be clearly in the box marked ‘tough decisions’, to which Charles added ‘Like the euro, which he also wants to duck,’ before laughing uproariously.