3.4 |
Development of UK strategy and options, late July to 14 September
2002
221.
Mr Campbell
recorded in his diary that Mr Blair wanted to “avoid” talking
about
Iraq; and
that he would use the line that doing nothing was not an option “if
pushed”,
but he
did not want to go beyond that.74
222.
Mr Campbell
added that Mr Blair was:
“Privately
… growing more and more dismissive of the critics … Equally he
was
clear that
the Yanks had not handled it well over the holiday … [T]hey had
allowed
the game to
run ahead of them, and Cheney and Rumsfeld had just made it
worse.
“… He was a
lot steelier than when he went on holiday. Clear that getting
Saddam
was the
right thing to do …
…
“David had
got Condi to get GWB to offer TB next Saturday for a meeting in
the
margins of
his so‑called war counsel [sic]. I think they realised that they
had messed
up the
presentation and had to get into a better position, so it seemed
clear Bush
did want TB
there, but heaven knows what Cheney and Rumsfeld would make of
it.
TB was
up for it.”
223.
In response to
an article in the Financial
Times of 31 August,
reporting that Mr Blair
had pressed
President Bush for a UN mandate, Mr Campbell wrote in his
diary on
1 September:
“Iraq was
becoming a frenzy again. TB was becoming more and more
belligerent,
saying he
knew it was the right thing to do … Obviously the best thing to do
would
be to avoid
war, get the inspectors in and all the weapons out … the US had
to
be managed
into a better position … but we won’t be able to do it if we come
out
against the
US the whole time … Equally it was clear that public opinion had
moved
against us
during August.”75
224.
On 2 September
Mr Campbell wrote to Sir David Manning, and to
Mr Powell and
Mr Rycroft,
saying that Mr Blair was “alarmed, and angry, at the way parts
of our thinking
and
planning on Iraq are seeping into the media in an unco‑ordinated
and undisciplined
way”.76
“Above
all”, Mr Blair was “concerned what the US Administration must
think”.
Mr Blair
intended to use his press conference the following day (in his
Sedgefield
constituency)
to make the general position clear and “give people a public
script”.
But more
must be done “to ensure people do not depart from that, publicly or
privately,
or give a
running commentary in every aspect of his thinking”.
74
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power: Countdown
to
Iraq.
Hutchinson, 2012.
75
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power: Countdown
to
Iraq.
Hutchinson, 2012.
76
Minute
Campbell to Manning, 2 September 2002, [untitled].
133