The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (81 page)

We had a long chat in TB’s bedroom with him, DM, Jonathan, Sally and I. The French officials were apparently really worried about France being left behind and some evidence that the Germans were looking to get into a different position. David had been shuttling between us and the Americans and they certainly had the message that we had to keep pushing for a second resolution. They felt 1441 was all they needed. Goldsmith was making clear that he didn’t agree. Over breakfast, TB kept asking what we wanted out of today and I kept saying ‘Bush moves towards second resolution.’ We joked about this being his last visit to the States as prime minister. [Sir Christopher] Meyer [UK ambassador to Washington] said TB could make a fortune doing lectures.

Blix’s interview was a bit iffy but he did have the line that there had been no change in Iraq’s attitude. TB went off to the gym. I read a JIC note that made clear they held out little hope of Saddam just giving up, whilst there was every prospect of him doing something crazy like setting off the oilfields. The weather was apparently terrible at Camp David and meant we couldn’t go there by helicopter so we were grounded in Washington and at 1 we left for the White House. While TB was seeing Bush, Tom Kelly and I saw Dan and I gave him a very frank assessment of the politics for us, said that our balls were in a vice. He said they believed that both politically and legally they could go without a second resolution. Again, we went over the issue of anti-Americanism. ‘My guy’s not doing you a lot of favours is he?’ No, I said, it used to be Rumsfeld, now it’s the president but I can see why you can’t keep HIM off.

We went up to wait for TB and GWB. The question to resolve pre the press conference was what to say about a second resolution. GWB and Condi were both up for the idea of him saying he was ‘open’ to a second resolution, but Ari Fleischer [press secretary] pulled him back, said it would be seen as a shift in US policy, and then tried to push him back the other way, said that I was worried after what TB said in his interviews earlier, it would be a split story. It was a very
odd scene. Me standing next to Bush, Condi and Ari next to TB, Ari and I trying to push each other’s leaders in a different direction. Bush said he could say a second resolution would be ‘welcome but not necessary’. TB and Bush having had a lot of the discussion without us there, it made it harder to push back without them stating the nature of the discussion they had just had, and in any event Bush was impatient to get on with it. As a result, we didn’t really have the lines properly prepared. ‘Let’s just do it,’ said Bush.

They both dispensed with opening remarks, which I think was a mistake because they gave no real context. The overall impression was poor. TB didn’t really answer the question about a second resolution. And though Bush said it would be ‘welcome’ he looked uncomfortable and the body language was poor. Whatever people said about him, he is actually a very direct personality, which meant that he wasn’t good at hiding what he thought or felt. Even though the words were kind of OK, the overall impression was not. As they wrapped up, Sally and I caught each other’s eye. She grimaced. Tom managed to spin our lot [travelling UK media] to a more positive position by saying Bush was making clear he was open to a second resolution. TB said afterwards that in fact it had been the best meeting they had had in terms of substance, that they got on well, that Bush had read and digested his notes and was more on the same page than we thought, said he intended to work hard to get a second resolution and work to get a majority for it. TB repeated that if we didn’t have the cover of the UN, when the Iraqis were bringing dead babies out of bombed buildings, having killed their own people, we would be in real trouble, so we had to go for it. But the politics of the UN on this were the opposite for him. David’s note on the meeting made pretty clear they had made their minds up and that the campaign was going to start March 14, later than originally planned. For Bush, the diplomacy had to be based round the military campaign, not the other way round. We had very short timelines now.

The press conference over, we went to the family dining room for dinner – Bush, [his wife] Laura, Condi, George Tenet [CIA director], [Dan] Fried [National Security Council], [William] Farish [US ambassador to London], Dan [Bartlett] – TB, C, AC, Jonathan, [Christopher] Meyer, David M, Sally M. We talked a bit about the Democrats. He reckoned [Senator John] Kerry was the front-runner [to be Democratic presidential candidate in 2004], the guy who was married to the Heinz heiress [second wife Teresa] who would be able to put up millions from front organisations. He wasn’t impressed by [Senator John] Edwards [another Democratic contender]. We had a good laugh on
the Olympics when I persuaded him to say that London would be a great choice. Jonathan ruined the whole thing by pointing out that New York was going for it. Bush reckoned Hillary [Clinton] could go for it [the presidency] in 2008. Laura was pretty quiet all evening. Bush was playing up his daft image again, saying his favourite leaders were Who and No because he could pronounce their names properly.

TB was due to do a couple of interviews at Andrews Airbase so Tom and I travelled back with him. He said he was confident of getting a second resolution. We had to cancel an interview with [George] Stephanopoulos [TV journalist, former Clinton adviser] because of the fog. George was in a terrible state so I agreed he could come over to do it in London or Chequers on Sunday morning, though that eventually got cancelled because of the space shuttle crash.
¹¹
I had told Dan that people in Europe really questioned their motives, and TB came away feeling their motives might be questionable, but he was adamant that it was the right thing to do to get rid of Saddam and send out a message that we were determined to deal with WMD. But he knew how tough it was going to be. Expressing confidence on a second resolution was the best way of dealing with that.

On the plane, as we flew home, I was taken aback by the extent to which the press thought the body language between them had been bad. We briefed hard that this was the US playing hardball, the message directed as much at the French and the Russians as anyone else. What was really annoying was that both Bush and Condi seemed fine about saying they were open to the idea of a second resolution, but that Ari [Fleischer] had pushed him back, and by the time he was out there, his body language was terrible. TB felt things had gone about as well as they could have done, but still felt they were doing the right thing in the wrong way, and just wished they could improve the way they put their case to the world.

Got home, felt ill, went to bed. Space shuttle crash pretty much overwhelmed the media agenda. Out for dinner at Tessa’s. David Mills [her husband] massively against the war. There was definitely a feeling there that we weren’t doing the right thing, or if we were, we weren’t doing it for the right reasons.

Did fourteen miles in just over two hours, took the total for the week to forty-seven. Press very low-key on Iraq because of the space shuttle. Spoke to TB who wanted to make clear he had no problem with Robin and others criticising his position on reform of the Lords, the Sundays having a few stories about Robin shaping up to quit. He wanted to go out early to Le Touquet for the Chirac dinner, but Chirac didn’t want to move it. Tuesday was going to be tough. Spoke to Catherine Colonna to discuss how we avoided
la bagarre
[trouble].

Space shuttle still huge. TB’s statement on Iraq was running fine, alongside the Pentagon briefing on the scale of the military attack planned. GB was making a speech [to the Social Market Foundation] emphasising we were OK on the economic front, though there were a few pieces around on his reputation falling, which was a bit of a current theme. Andy Marr [BBC] called, claimed that he was being wound up by the Treasury to present GB’s speech as a split with TB, with a big attack on markets and a different tone on Europe. I called Ed Balls and we agreed a line to push, that it was pro market, pro reform, pro PFI. TB read it, all forty pages of it, and felt it was fine but it just didn’t take on the arguments in the way that he needed to.

We had another firefight re Zimbabwe. TB was calling Chirac at 11 who mentioned that
Le Monde
had got hold of a telegram that revealed that Straw and [Dominique] de Villepin [French foreign minister] had agreed to Mugabe going to Paris and that TB was aware. Our immediate suspicion was that the French had done it deliberately. Catherine Colonna called me after the call and said please believe me, this was not an official leak and they were very embarrassed about it. It clearly put TB in a bad light and she said they would probably say nothing about it. Our line was basically that there had been discussions at various levels but we had been unable to agree, which was why there was continuing discussion in Brussels and our bottom line was sanctions rollover. The money was beginning to come in for my marathon appeal – £5,000 from [David] Sainsbury, £2,500 from the GMB [union], £500 from Jackie Stewart.

TB felt on Iraq we had finally got the focus where it needed to be, on the issue of co-operation with Blix. He did calls with Putin and Simitis, which were better. The joint article had had the desired effect of the French and the Russians taking us a bit more seriously. [French ambassador Gérard] Errera’s brief for the summit was that TB was
weakened but still the only show in town because the Labour Party needed him more than he needed them and his prediction was that TB would be PM for some time. We went over to the House for the post-US visit statement and spent longer than usual going through the difficult questions, many of which just didn’t come up. In any event he did well, a lot of passion and personal commitment, making clear he was doing this because he felt it was right.
¹²
I got back for an honours meeting, usual bollocks where anything too radical was blocked and the usual Establishment lot put forward. I sometimes wished TB took more of an interest in changing all this, but at the same time could see why he didn’t want to spend time on it. His hopes for the Chirac meeting tomorrow seemed a bit unrealistic. He wanted a really positive outcome, but it was hard to see where it would come from.

The Anglo-French summit at Le Touquet was being built up on the assumption of a big bust-up. Catherine Colonna and I were talking the whole time, and were on the same track in trying to get things in a better place. We were both using the line that more unites us than divides us. We left at 8.40 for Northolt, flew out on a tiny plane that Chirac wouldn’t be seen dead in. Stephen Wall had done a good draft for the press conference which I topped and tailed. TB was convinced that the pro-US EU leaders’ joint letter had been the right thing to do and would find Chirac in a better position vis-à-vis us, because if there was one thing he understood, it was strength. It was very cold on arrival. We were driven to the town hall, a huge scrum of media and public around TB and JC. Then in for the main bilateral, [Jean-Pierre] Raffarin [Prime Minister of France] also there, in the room normally used for marriages. It was when you saw French president and prime minister together that you were most aware of where the real power lay. Chirac, who could be overbearing at the best of times, was even more so in the presence of his prime minister, and although TB was his political opposite number, I think psychologically he tried to make TB think in terms of being Raffarin’s opposite number.

They went through some of the difficult non-Iraq issues first, defence, CAP [Common Agricultural Policy], climate change, Africa.
On EU institutions, Chirac claimed close agreement, at one point even claiming that on the reform of the institutions his position was ‘
plus Britannique
’ than German. He said we had to convince the smaller countries that they do not lose by having a full-time president of the Council and we had to strengthen the Commission and Council at the same time. TB said he had had lunch with Giscard [d’Estaing, former French President] last week and that he had done a good job. Chirac – ‘
Je t’ai dit que c’était le meilleur.
’ [I told you he was the best.] TB – ‘
Tu avais raison.
’ [You were right.] Chirac – ‘
Comme d’habitude.
’ [As usual.] Things got trickier on CAP, Chirac absolutely clear that he wasn’t going for the kind of major change we wanted. He said the British view and the French view of farmers was very different, that France was the second biggest agricultural exporter in the world, that in England agriculture was not popular, that in France it was. Chirac was at his patronising best or worst, depending how you look at it, and TB had a big smile as he spoke. ‘I think you are a very fair man, Tony, and it would be good to see if we can get you in a better position on this.’ ‘
Si non, on arrive à un moment où on s’engueule. Tu comprends s’engueuler?
’ [If not, we reach a point where we are rowing. Do you understand ‘rowing’?] TB – ‘
Je comprends très bien. Surtout maintenant.
’ [I understand very well. Especially now.] The joint letter had definitely got to him, and he emphasised that prior to the spring summit there should be a joint letter from UK, France and Germany, even though ‘
je me méfie des lettres
’ [I mistrust letters]’.

On Zimbabwe, he [Chirac] apologised for the leak, said there would be a leak inquiry ‘which will not find out anything’. Again, he gave the impression that we were opposing for the sake of it. On the Middle East, Chirac was sceptical that the Americans would do anything, said power was not in Washington but in the Jewish population in New York. When TB said he believed Bush would do something, Chirac looked upwards rather dramatically. ‘
Que Dieu t’entend.
’ [May God hear you.] They weren’t much closer on Afghanistan. Chirac pessimist, TB trying to see the bright side.

Then Iraq, where Chirac said ‘I’m not going to convince you, you won’t convince me, so we can explain that one easily.’ He said tomorrow we get the ‘famous American revelations, namely
rien du tout
[nothing at all]’. ‘Is that because they are American?’ asked TB. No, but if there were real revelations, we would know them too. He said they would listen with respect to [Colin] Powell, then Blix and [Mohamed] ElBaradei [director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency]. He said there was no point pretending we were in the same position, other than agreeing that we wanted to disarm Iraq.
They thought 1441 and more time for the inspectors. If Powell has important things to say, he should let the inspectors examine it. On a second resolution, if there was a war, we would need one but we do not need one at the moment because we are going through 1441. He came back to the letter, and TB said there was little point commenting on it. ‘But it created a lot of noise. We should show some humour on that, otherwise we will appear imbecilic or hypocritical.’ Catherine chipped in and said sometimes your humour does not travel with the press, Mr President. He asked what she advised. ‘
Dire rien.
’ [Say nothing.]