Broken Vows (42 page)

On 28 May 2003, the prime minister flew to Kuwait. From there he planned to hop across into Iraq to visit British soldiers and hear briefings from Paul Bremer. The month had been turgid. The Tories had won impressively in the local elections, and Brown's renewed warfare was dousing his self-confidence about a third term.

Subverting the mood throughout Downing Street was the continuing failure to find WMDs. The chance of their discovery some
six weeks after the invasion began, Blair and his advisers knew, had become remote. Surrounded by those complicit in his blunder – David Manning, Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell – Blair underestimated the anger across the country about going to war on bogus intelligence. After sixteen months' proximity to Richard Dearlove and John Scarlett, he realised they had committed an ‘error' but believed they were innocent of ‘deception'. In any case, in his mind the weapons were irrelevant. The invasion was still ‘the right thing to do', regardless of WMDs. Or at least that was the argument he adopted in public. Giving Hans Blix more time would have been pointless, explained Blair, since the inspector ‘would have yielded … the [wrong] conclusion that because Saddam had no active WMD programme, therefore he was not a threat'. Blair was uninterested in reconciliation with his critics. Digging in to defend his belief in ‘regime change', the accusation he faced across the country was of ‘deception'.

Blair's shield was punctured soon after he stepped into the desert heat of Basra on 29 May, alongside Campbell. After earlier telling journalists that he remained ‘absolutely confident that the weapons would be found', he was informed that Donald Rumsfeld had publicly conceded that Saddam's WMDs would probably never be discovered because he possibly never possessed them. Campbell noted about Bush's hardman, ‘What a clot … really irritating.'

Another irritation was a report on the BBC
Today
programme that morning. Andrew Gilligan, an experienced BBC reporter disliked by Campbell for his critical dispatches from Baghdad, had broadcast that the government ‘probably knew' that the dossier's assertion about intelligence showing that Iraq could prepare and fire WMDs within forty-five minutes of any order ‘was wrong even before it decided to put it in'. Gilligan added: ‘Downing Street, our source says, a week before publication [of the dossier], ordered it to be sexed up, to be made more exciting, and ordered more facts to be discovered.'

In later broadcasts that morning, Gilligan altered his narrative, saying that the government knew the ‘forty-five minutes' claim was
‘questionable' rather than ‘wrong', but he repeated his central allegation that Blair and Campbell conspired to falsify the assertion against Scarlett's wishes. In fact, Scarlett had wholeheartedly approved the dossier, although he knew that the ‘intelligence' did not describe a rocket but an artillery gun. Gilligan assumed that Campbell and Blair were aware of Scarlett's mistake.

The dam had broken. In Washington and London, military and intelligence experts conceded that the WMDs may not have existed. In Westminster, seventy Labour MPs demanded an inquiry. Many were briefed by friends in Whitehall that the September dossier was based on flimsy evidence. Over the next three days, Gilligan's ‘sexed-up' allegations were repeated across the media. Critics described a common thread running from Blair's macho protection of Jo Moore after she had suggested ‘burying bad news' on 9/11 to Gilligan's allegations about the manipulation of intelligence.

A journalist accompanying Blair to Iraq and then on to Poland was told by the prime minister, ‘The idea that we authorised or made our intelligence agencies invent some piece of evidence is completely absurd.' Blair also told the journalist about the discovery in Iraq of ‘two trailers which were used to make biological weapons'. Blair was repeating Curveball's invention, which had been accepted by Dearlove.

During his onward flight to St Petersburg for an EU–Russia summit, Blair read in the
Mail on Sunday
an article by Gilligan in which he spelled out his allegations under the subhead, ‘I asked my intelligence source why Blair misled us all over Saddam's weapons. His reply? One word – Campbell'. Gilligan described how Downing Street had ‘sexed up' the dossier and how the intelligence officers responsible had become distressed by Campbell's distortion of the ‘forty-five minutes' report. The combination of Campbell, Iraq and the dishonesty about the dossier created a frenzy of lurid headlines that fuelled the public's loss of trust in Blair and, eventually, all politicians.

Campbell was incandescent. Tired and ready to resign, he understood the damaging effect of even a partial truth. Blair was equally
dismayed. ‘It's another attack to go to the heart of my integrity,' he told his PR man, knowing that the dossier's foreword, which had been written by Campbell, misrepresented the ‘sporadic and patchy' conclusions in the original JIC report. ‘It is grotesque,' continued Blair. ‘There is no story here at all, but it is being driven by the BBC as a huge crisis for us.'

Neither had survived for nine years in the spotlight without the skills to deflect the truth. They were helped by Gilligan's two principal mistakes: Blair and Campbell had not distorted the ‘forty-five minutes' intelligence; and Gilligan's source was David Kelly, a weapons expert employed by the government and as a UN inspector in Iraq who had no role in compiling the dossier. Authorised by his superiors to brief journalists, Kelly had cautiously repeated a complaint he had heard from Brian Jones, an analyst at the MoD. However, even Kelly was convinced before the invasion that Saddam possessed WMDs.

Under pressure to shame Gilligan's unknown source, John Reid blamed ‘rogue elements' in the security services, and a hunt was launched for a disloyal senior officer in MI6 or the JIC. ‘John believes you should go for the throat when you're in a corner,' said one of his allies. Reid's mistake horrified Blair. Clinging onto Dearlove's and Scarlett's loyalty was important for his own survival. They would sink or swim together. Campbell for his part took comfort from Dearlove's support, forgetting that the MI6 chief was vulnerable himself.

Blair's initial instinct was to allow the media frenzy to burn itself out. His misfortune was that Robin Cook and Clare Short joined the debate to denounce him for ‘duping' the country. Both the party's and the public's anger grew. Loyalist Labour ministers accused the intelligence services of skulduggery. In retaliation, anonymous voices said Blair was paranoid. The public's trust in him dived. To his irritation, the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee opened an inquiry into the ‘forty-five minutes' claim. At least he could be confident that, under the chairmanship of Labour MP Ann Taylor, the committee's Labour majority would be sympathetic towards the government. His dependency upon Campbell was less secure.

Blair's good fortune since 1994 was to be supported by outstanding political operators. None was better than Peter Mandelson or Alastair Campbell. His misfortune was that neither could satisfy the public's expectations of probity. For nine years, Campbell had successfully shaped and misshaped the news to promote and protect Blair. In that time he had become infamous as a bully and a liar. His misleading descriptions about Blair's relations with Brown, the fate of a hapless minister or government achievements were trivial compared to the two dossiers that persuaded many Britons to support the Iraq war. By the end of May 2003, both were known to be untrue.

As he returned to London from St Petersburg, Blair failed to assess his principal defender dispassionately. Ever since Fiona Millar had told him that she and Campbell wanted to resign, Blair had noticed his ally's instability. The obvious solution was to bid both farewell and start afresh. He resisted. He needed the comforting support of his
consigliere
, for Brown was once again agitating for his resignation, citing their disagreement over the euro.

As agreed, Brown had submitted the Treasury's studies to the Cabinet. To Blair's dismay, the eighteen massive volumes made normal scrutiny impossible. But, with the Cabinet's support, he still proposed a referendum in which he would advocate membership. Brown appeared on television to say he was against joining and, among several other obstacles, could wield a veto. The following morning, Blair told Campbell while eating toast with marmalade in his flat that ‘The best way would be to get out a gun, shoot the obstacle and then have a reshuffle.' Once again, Blair was urged by Alan Milburn, Reid and others to dismiss the chancellor. He refused. ‘Removing Brown', he wrote, ‘would have brought the entire building tumbling down around our ears.'

When, three days later, Milburn announced he was resigning, Blair mishandled the reshuffle. After several emotional arguments, Derry Irvine was replaced by Charles Falconer as Lord Chancellor. Irvine's sacking was quoted as another example of Blair's disloyalty, and the resulting reorganisation of the justice system was chaotic. Blair was
vulnerable on so many fronts – except against the Tories. Iain Duncan Smith had failed to exploit Labour's divisions both on tuition fees and foundation hospitals, and, having given unequivocal support for the Iraq war, was perplexed about how to lead the charge over the intelligence flaws. Blair had no reason to fear the lame leader of a demoralised party as an alternative prime minister. His chancellor was the only serious threat. Under attack from Ed Balls and other Brown supporters, Blair feared life without Campbell.

Hating any journalist who failed to show obedience, Campbell used his appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee on 25 June to defend the September dossier and assault Gilligan: ‘I simply say, in relation to the BBC story, it is a lie, it was a lie. It is a lie that is continually repeated, and until we get a public apology for it I will keep making sure that Parliament, people like yourselves and the public know that it was a lie.' Blair congratulated Campbell without grasping the truth: his great protector had lost his self-control.

Two days later, Campbell walked unexpectedly into the
Channel 4 News
studio during its live broadcast, sat down and launched a vitriolic attack against those who accused him of ‘sexing up' the dossier. He was looking for scalps – Gilligan's in particular, then the BBC's editors' and that of anyone else whose demise would resurrect his reputation for probity. That night, even Blair realised his spokesman was unbalanced. Yet Campbell's mental state was unimportant compared to the thrust of Gilligan's report. The public, Blair understood, would excuse an ‘error' but would not forgive ‘a deception' or that he himself ‘had deliberately misled the House of Commons'.

Blair's fate – possible ‘resignation and disgrace', as he would later write – depended on how his representation of Scarlett's summary was judged. The JIC had originally described the intelligence on WMDs as ‘sporadic and patchy', yet Blair represented it as ‘extensive, detailed and authoritative', and pleaded that any discrepancy was an ‘error'.

‘The intelligence was wrong,' he would write. ‘We admitted it. We apologised for it.' That was inaccurate. In June 2003, he emphatically
insisted that the Iraq Survey Group, a thousand inspectors under American command, would eventually find the WMDs. In the meantime, he needed to deflect criticism, and agreed with Campbell to launch a broadside against the BBC. ‘Alastair was concerned by the lowering of the standards at the BBC', recalled Hoon without irony, ‘and wanted to fight against that.' To their relief, the ‘chaff' who, like the metal fired into the sky to disorientate guided missiles, could deflect the public's criticism unsuspectingly offered himself on 1 July.

David Kelly, an honest, loyal and troubled man, wrote to his manager at the MoD to reveal that he had spoken to Gilligan. However, he explained, he could not be the journalist's source because Gilligan's story did not match what Kelly knew nor his contribution during their conversation.

As the news spread in Downing Street that Gilligan's ‘source' was known, Blair's confidants and top security officials, including Scarlett, were summoned to discuss how Kelly could be used to discredit the BBC. Campbell was agitating for retaliation. ‘The biggest thing needed', he noted, ‘was the source out.' That would ‘open a flank on the BBC'.

On the afternoon of 8 July, Blair was under pressure. Instead of recalling the humiliating retreat the previous year after Campbell had complained about a newspaper's allegation that Blair had sought to promote his own role in the Queen Mother's funeral, he succumbed again to his lieutenant's impetuosity. In what Tebbit would call ‘a decisive meeting' that included Campbell, Powell and others, Blair agreed that the MoD should announce that Gilligan's source had revealed himself. Gleefully, Campbell ordered that the government machine be mobilised ‘to fuck Gilligan'. The only complication was that Tebbit arrived in Downing Street just after the meeting had broken up.

‘Alastair will explain to you what we've decided,' Blair told him as he disappeared into an education stock-take.

Tebbit found Campbell completing a press release. ‘We're going to leak the name,' Campbell told him.

‘You can't do that until I have spoken to him,' said Tebbit. In the
meantime, the press release, he said, should state that ‘someone has come forward'.

‘OK,' replied Campbell, without betraying his emotions.

Tebbit agreed that the government statement could describe Kelly's background to hasten his identification. That had been authorised by Blair, even though such an announcement was unprecedented. Kelly's outing, Blair would later write, was ‘handled' by Tebbit ‘at my insistence'. He drew a distinction between ‘leaking' Kelly's name and ‘confirming' enquiries.

In reality, at Campbell's behest Hoon directed spokesmen at the MoD to confirm Kelly's name whenever a journalist correctly identified him. Soon after, a ministry official told Kelly that his name would be released. Kelly was mortified. Blair would subsequently deny ‘the brutal media allegation' that Campbell had ‘leaked' Kelly's name. ‘He hadn't,' wrote Blair, which, strictly speaking, was true because the revelation of Kelly's identity, as Tebbit agreed, matched the commitment by the MoD to ‘provide as much information as we can', albeit with Campbell's encouragement. To aggravate the smear on Kelly, he was described by Tom Kelly (no relation), one of Blair's spokesmen, as a ‘Walter Mitty character'.