CS: … we haven’t focussed yet on why Blix couldn’t continue to
do his work. What was the urgency? …
And there’s no explanation without them working to a preordained date. And then there’s various publications and
interviews, when Tony wasn’t under such scrutiny and therefore he and his
entourage weren’t being so careful, that indicate the date.
And, as I’ve said before, some
very, very senior figures in Whitehall, different people, said to me, look
Clare, it’s already fixed, at a time when I still believed that a second
resolution, we were really committed to it, so I think the evidence is
overwhelming, and I think it will become clear. And I’m sure if Tony denies it, he’ll do it with careful words. …
I’m, as I said before, I’m very
sad about the conclusions I have reached, but I have read now various books,
the Woodward book that came out of the Bush White House collaboration. I’ve just read this 30-day Stothard book,
which again says, it says it might have been June actually.
But I just ask everyone to
concentrate their mind: why couldn’t Blix have more time, and why were we lied
to about the French position, because it’s now absolutely clear? And if you
read Tony’s 18 March speech, and I believed him at the time, he says over and
over and over again that the French saying No to any second resolution made a
second resolution impossible. It’s now
clear what Chirac said, and he said it publicly in France on the 10 March, that
Blix must have his time to do his work; if he fails it will have to come back
to the Security Council, and then I’m afraid there’ll be war. So it was completely dishonest to say France
made impossible a second resolution.
SR: … Do you think he meant it at the time that
there were these imminent threats and that there would be tangible evidence of
the weapons themselves, or was he, in your view, as he has done in other
elements of this war, lying?
CS: I think that Tony Blair convinced himself that
it was very, very important to stay close to the US post September 11, that
they were determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein, that Saddam Hussein
needed to be dealt with, and America being isolated would be a disaster for the
world, and quite why he thought it was such a disaster I don’t understand, and
that’s one of fixed points.
So I think he thought it was
honourable, and committed us, and thought it was honourable and brave to get us
there, and then a series of half-truths, slight deceptions, exaggerations, and
I think he’s used to being a persuader and using language quite generally, not
being very precise, and by and large the media and politics in Britain has
bought it for six years. I’m sure he’s
very shocked by what’s going on now, and I’m sure he’s convinced that what he
did was right. But I’m also sure that
he fooled the country in a series of ways, in a way that’s intolerable when
it’s a matter of war and peace, and human beings’ lives, and the future of a
country.
SR: What are the implications for him? …
CS: Well, it’s not for me to say, because I've
already said I think it would be in the interests of Tony Blair himself and his
legacy of the Labour Party, and actually of the country, if he would think of
making a voluntary departure and we could have an elegant handover and Labour
could renew itself in power. I don’t
think the Conservatives – they’re shaping up a bit – but they’re not fit to
form a government yet. So, from every
point of view I think that’s the best way to go. …
We will see, there’s two good
years to the next election, we’ll see how this plays out. I think the best solution for Tony would be
if he planned to move on before it gets ever nastier.
SR: Presumably, if you wanted a new leader the
only way there could be a smooth transition would be that voluntary departure.
CS: It’s difficult to do it without voluntary
co-operation, because we’ve got a system of elections for the leader that’s
designed for opposition.
SR: So it’s harder in government to manoeuvre
it. Stepping back from what you’re
saying, it is astonishing if true the allegations are very, very serious.
CS: They’re fantastically serious. The other one that hasn’t been discussed is
the lack of preparation for afterwards.
They chose the date, they planned this, they organised it, they got the
world to war, and they didn’t plan for what happened afterwards, and people are
continuing to die, American soldiers, British soldiers and Iraqi people. This is disgracefully incompetent.
SR: Some people blame you and your department
for that, of course, don’t they? They
say, come on, this was Clare Short’s responsibility to get this co-ordination
with the UN, and so on. You know that
that is an allegation.
CS: But that is a joke. I had an undertaking from Tony about how the
post-conflict arrangements would be.
What you need is the military and the coalition to absolutely focus on
their Geneva Convention obligations, which is keeping order, very urgent humanitarian,
and keeping civil administration going.
The UN humanitarians were all ready, pre-positioned in the region to
come in and get the electricity and water and hospitals going. But they can’t
do that without order. It’s the
military not doing its job because there’s been so much messing about.
And then the UN needs to do the
job of consulting the Iraqis to get an interim administration, as in
Afghanistan. Then you can get the IMF
and World Bank and start the economic reform, and if you do it like that the
international community will all come in.
That was what I said repeatedly to the Commons would be done, that’s
what I understood that Tony Blair had agreed we’d do, when I agreed to stay in
the government, after lots of pressing from him.
He completely then ignored all of
that, just let the Americans get on with this Pentagon-led ORHA, Organisation
for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, and the Pentagon and
the State Department were fighting about who would be the Iraqi administrator,
not preparing for their job. It’s a disaster. To suggest that it was the Department of
International Development is a pathetic joke.
SR: Moving to the domestic agenda, there’s still
a very direct link, there are clear problems on the domestic agenda. Will he have a problem with it because of
this trust question? …
CS: I think there are problems, and it’s a kind
of hubris, it’s the centralisation of power in Number 10, thinking that
everyone else is stupid, we’ve got to force these things through.
Foundation hospitals is a complete
mess, it’s not a sensible policy. I
believe fantastically strongly in decentralisation in the public services, the
control freakery, too many targets, too many bureaucratic trails, is a major
thing that’s holding back the success of reform in the public services. But this sudden reorganisation, giving
privileged status to the most privileged hospitals, is not decentralisation in
the health service, getting quality and buying in of all the staff so you get
the improvement.
Top up fees is outrageous. We
fought the election on a commitment not to bring them in. He's driving that through and it’s not just
ideological. He tries to suggest people like me are conservatives and he's the
great radical. Its absolutely crummy,
un-thought through, bad policy.
And then on the Euro, we had a
very clear policy, which must be the right policy that we presume we’ll end up
in, but we’ve got to go with the economic interests of our country, and that’s
what the five tests are all about, and we’ll all proceed accordingly.
We were all united on that, there
wasn’t really any division to speak of in the Labour Party, and he’s
manufactured this great big division with Gordon Brown, so now everybody thinks
there was a kind of great big division, and that he’s trying to drive us into
the Euro before the economy’s ready.
That’s manufactured from Number 10, again, I think.
So, it’s just a series of errors
that come I think from centralisation of power into Number 10, so there’s not
proper consultation, and the discussions with others that leads to improvements
in policy. And then this sort of arrogance of trying to drive things through,
and it’s just error after error.
SR: Is it arrogance or is it, if you’re correct
with these policies, of emerging without much thought being put to them, does
it tell us anything else about Tony Blair?
CS: Well, it’s partly I think the result of the
expanding advisors in Number 10, faceless clever young things come up with
these clever ideas. The Prime
Minister’s not a detail man, but he wants bold ideas for his second term, so he
thinks Yes that’s a bold idea, and the Parliamentary Labour Party, the Cabinet,
and all that, they’re not quite up to it, and I’ll get this through and I’ll
get my place in the history books. I
think that’s what’s going on. It leads
to mistake after mistake. …
Labour & Trade Union Review
August 2003