The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (12 page)

We landed [in Oman] in beautiful sunshine with a full red-carpet welcome, bands, national guard, the Omani works. We then headed for the guest house, set way back in its own grounds close to one of the sultan’s residences. The place itself was about as ornate as anything we had seen. My bedroom had two gold-plated chandeliers hanging from a ceiling that must have taken months to paint. The bath was surrounded by more perfumes and toiletries than I knew existed. It was apparently the room normally reserved for visiting spouses so God knows what that made me. There was a lovely open-air swimming pool so I had a quick swim before doing a note to the MoD on my plan to brief the travelling press on the overall strategic direction based around the ‘objectives of military action’ document. We were running into a problem with the sense being communicated by the US that they were constantly trying to link Iraq into the equation.

TB was keen to pull it back and through a mix of my briefing and his interviews at the army base, we just about did that, but it was difficult to do while simultaneously avoiding US–UK split stories.
TB’s room was even more luxurious, a carpet that your feet seemed to disappear into, paintings and statuettes that were both gaudy and somehow conveying a certain style. We went out to the poolside to go over what he would say to the UK troops, then set off by helicopter. I was always impressed by the way the military could set up home anywhere. Their base was pretty much a desert, but you had the sense of being in a very British, very well-organised operation. While TB was shown around, I did a background briefing on the objectives document, which they saw as substantial and newsworthy. But I stupidly referred to it as a ‘policy bible’ which had a touch of Bush’s ‘crusade’ reference, which I tried to pull back from later. We rejoined TB who was getting a good response from the troops. There were several Burnley fans there, including one with the club crest tattooed on his shoulder. The speech to the troops was excellent, both in terms of its actual impact on the troops, and in media terms.

Flew back by helicopter. It was now almost unbearably hot. We got back to a couple of immediate problems. It emerged TB had told some of the squaddies, who had passed on to the press, that he had said one of the kids was thinking about the military as a career. I got Godric to call around and try to get them not to run it. Meanwhile, the BBC was reporting already that we were going on to Cairo. The others were not unreasonably pissed off that they were abiding by the agreement while the BBC seemed to be making a point of breaking it. Also, TB had been pictured with a guy wearing a T-shirt with the slogan ‘We came, we saw, we kicked ass’, which might go down better in the US than the UK.

I was getting pressed the whole time about the Yanks and Iraq, which was difficult. We got a report through on Battle Damage Assessment which showed the strikes had not been as effective as planned, but TB’s bigger worry was the overall strategy. Then news came through that Iraq had shot down a Predator [unmanned surveillance plane]. The Americans were bound to react. The Taliban told OBL that he was free to fight Jihad. Bush publicly raised fears that OBL was using videos to send coded messages to terrorists already in the US. He also announced the ‘22 Most Wanted’.
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I went out for a run on the sultan’s private beach. It was hot, but that wonderful dry heat that meant that once I was into a rhythm, I was running well and felt privileged to be out on my own in such beautiful surroundings. I had a quick swim in the sea before going back for TB’s bilateral with the sultan and then
an extraordinary dinner where wave upon wave of food came towards us. I noticed for the first couple of courses the sultan and his colleagues just picking, and after a while it became clear why. We were on the fifth course before I realised we were still on the appetisers. By the end, we had been served twenty-one courses. The sultan said he had a little surprise for us and out of nowhere came a pipe band, Omanis dressed in kilts serenading us with pipes and drums from the balcony above the dining room. They weren’t bad.

On the substance, the Palestine problem came through every part of the discussion. He said Israel had to give. He was obviously aware of the tensions over Iraq, said they were happy to support us for now, re Afghanistan, but if the US went for Iraq, they would flake away and so would others, pretty quickly. David, Jonathan and I later had a go at TB, tried to get him to speak to GWB, but he felt he should wait for a face-to-face meeting. His bigger concern was whether they had thought through the military strategy, that they had been bombing without putting troops in sufficient numbers near the targets, or thinking through counter-attacks.

I went for a run on the beach first thing. I hadn’t slept well, partly because I felt a bit uncomfortable with the over-the-topness of the luxury. I was used to sleeping in some big beds, but this was like sleeping in a field with a duvet. TB was in the gym when I got back, again a word which understates its luxury. He was worried about the Americans, worried about the military campaign, concerned the CIA were actively looking for reasons to widen and hit Iraq. The damage was being done by bombing but where were the ground forces ready to move in and mop up? He also felt the US were paying insufficient attention to pubic opinion outside America. He felt he should go to Washington soon. He, Jonathan and DM thought there was a case for me going ahead to try to get them in a better place on their global communications strategy.

After breakfast, we set off for the airport surrounded by outriders with machine guns and tanks carrying anti-aircraft missiles. We had to have a meeting with one of the sultan’s courtiers as part of the protocol, then on to the plane and on to Cairo. TB did an on-the-record briefing broken down into three parts: 1. a strong hint about the use of ground forces; 2. we had to do far better at the propaganda war in the Arab world, and 3. as important as anything, that the Middle East peace process was the key to solving all this. We had a problem with the Saudis apparently putting it out that they had postponed
TB’s visit after the bombing started because it was too difficult for them. We tried to make the case that it was more about logistics than diplomacy, but they were pretty unshiftable and the Saudi snub story was a big part of the media mix.

TB was doing well and was still getting a very good press, still showing strong leadership, but he was also very conscious of the danger that he was setting himself up for a fall by being in such a position of international leadership. But he felt he was getting somewhere with Bush, and also felt strongly that he had to do it. He spent much of the flight writing a personal note to GWB to send when we got back to London. We were never quite sure how widely these notes were circulated in the US system. He wanted to be as frank as possible, but was always conscious of the strains in Washington. He was clear that we needed more special forces and more ground troops quickly. We needed bases in Uzbekistan and stronger links into the Northern Alliance. He was emphasising as well the need to deliberate with colleagues and strengthen the coalition at every phase of the campaign. He really laid it on about the importance of MEPP, and also that if there was any sense of trying to use this to go for other countries, it would play into Bin Laden’s claim that this was not about September 11, or about the Taliban, or about him, but a war by the West on the Arab world. Get that wrong, and there was a danger of losing any chance of support from Russia, the Arab world, half the EU. He also felt, whatever they thought, we should not be lumping Syria in with Iraq.

On MEPP, he stated clearly it was the single biggest thing to get right, and his rebuke of Sharon had helped him in the Arab world, but that he needed a major new initiative, that talks had to get going again, that there had to be an acceptance at the outset that there would be two states at the end of it. He recommended a role for the EU as a way of lifting some of the load on the US. On the issue of propaganda, he said we needed to understand that the Arab world was on a different media planet, and Palestine was at the heart of it. He said we needed a dedicated, tightly knit unit for the war generally and for the Arab and Muslim world in particular. We have to reframe the way we think about reaching out to them. It was a very strong note, quite difficult to write because he had to be firm without seeming to be talking down to him, or not deferring to what was clearly a stronger power. We got back to London and I wrote a note to Karen to develop what TB was saying on communications. Bush did a press conference in the early hours and the story was he was giving a second chance to the Taliban, that the bombs would stop if they handed over OBL. They were slightly getting their messages mixed again.

I spoke to Byers and said he had to get out and do the media on Railtrack, even if it meant taking questions on Jo [Moore]. I felt the best thing was to do clips before the Railtrack meeting, where he could say something on Jo, then go out again after the Railtrack meeting, but only talk about rail. He sounded down and the press on this had been worse than I had realised just from the media brief. His clips were fine but I could tell from how often he was calling how nervous he was. I was starting to put my mind to a much bigger operation re the Arab media. We just weren’t at the races on this. We had had the occasional reasonable one-off hit, but a strategic operation was non-existent. Julian was nagging me about it and was right. I planned a brainstorm on it.

Colleen Harris [Prince of Wales’ staff], called saying that Charles was really keen to help. I said what about a visit to Bahrain, UAE, etc.? They said what about Saudi? I said we were already planning to go there. It would be great in some ways if they went together but would it mean TB could not do the politics properly. That would be the fear. I also suggested that in the UK, he could do more regional visits, mosques in particular, as we could not say often enough that it was not a war on Islam. TB, Jonathan and I met and agreed we should aim for a Saudi visit this week, Washington the week after. Re Byers and Jo, he said before leaving for Chequers that they had to tough it out.

Jonathan Prince [US Democrat adviser] called from Washington, said Hillary Clinton [former First Lady] had suggested he call because the Americans just were not at the races in the media war at the moment. She was worried the administration was constantly putting out mixed messages, e.g. when Bush had said on the same day both that it was safe to fly, and that we were facing a one hundred per cent threat. TB felt the problem was they lacked absolute clarity in their aims and strategy. He and Bush chatted on the phone for fifteen minutes or so but didn’t achieve much. We had heard the Taliban were planning to invite in selected film crews, and I put in a warning about the importance of them being aware of the dangers of being used.

TB was at Chequers and he and I both had the same feeling, it just wasn’t clear where this was heading. He said Bush would be getting fed up about all the talk of splits between [Colin] Powell and the Pentagon, so it was hard for TB to push himself even further in the task of trying to get GWB in a better place. He said there was a real
danger he was beginning to be seen as a pain in the arse. The sooner they met the better, he said. I had a couple of conversations with Colleen Harris and then with the creepy Mark Bolland [deputy private secretary to the Prince of Wales] who emphasised that the prince was really keen to get more involved. I sensed there was a bit of an operation to try to get back in with us a bit after all his countryside outbursts. I did a note to TB on what Charles might do, from articles, speeches and visits to a fully fledged joint visit to Saudi which would clearly be a very big step.

On the Jo Moore front, he felt that part of the problem was quite a lot of our ministers probably did treat civil servants like dirt, so when the more malign of them saw the chance of revenge, they would take it. He said we were fine because he always tried to be nice to them and they saw me as a character who at least had ability to match authority and who was always nice to the support staff and messengers. But a lot of the real civil-servant types would not take kindly to a lot of our people. He reckoned Boyce [CDS] was someone who probably believed a lot of the propaganda against us, that we basically listened the whole time to focus groups, that I was just a brutal apparatchik, etc.

On the Americans and their communications, he said it was so obvious what they needed to do. He said the sooner I went out to Washington the better, but he was conscious of not wanting to impose me or for it all to become part of a narrative about him overreaching himself. Condi called David Manning at 5pm to alert us that they were about to admit to a stray missile. I said we would put out the line that it was the right thing to admit it. She also said the Americans were worried about TB’s security because he was right out there in front of the assassination queue. I worked on a note on Arab opinion, really laying it on the line about how far removed we were from a proper operation. I got into my stride, set out five pages’ worth of possible ideas then called Karen Hughes to discuss it. She always sounded grateful for support and surprised at how many ideas it was possible to generate, but equally she always sounded annoyed when you got into the territory of the need to understand why anti-US feelings were so strong. I picked up, for example, a kind of revulsion in the Arab world at the sight of Bush urging American kids to send a dollar for the Afghan children. She couldn’t understand it. I told her the
Guardian
had reported on this as being all about America and the mighty dollar, and they just had to understand better how they were seen outside. I agreed to send her my note, she said she would hold a similar brainstorm and we would swap notes afterwards.

Chris Meyer sent a telegram from which it was clear the State Department were also worrying about the scale of the Islamic opinion problem. I did a note to Chris and sent him a copy of my letter to Karen Hughes. I went for a run with Rory and missed JP on
Frost
. JP called me afterwards beating himself up, saying he had been bumbling. Audrey [Millar, Fiona’s mother] had watched it and said he was fine. Byers was on the phone, as was Jo [Moore], and I told them both they should keep their heads down till Tuesday and his statement on Railtrack should be sufficiently robust and substantive to get above the noise. He sounded very fed up and isolated. I was also busy sorting through a few problems pre Arafat. TB said he was willing to do a joint press conference provided he didn’t just use it to trot out all the old lines about Israel. I felt if we could get Arafat to echo strongly what his spokesman said, namely that OBL could not speak for Palestine, that would be progress. We were getting heavier warnings about TB’s own security. Jack called me re my note on Arab opinion, said we were on exactly the same wavelength and I should use whatever FCO resources I needed.