A Journey_ My Political Life Part 23

The problem was that the BBC hierarchy couldn't see that it wasn't an allegation we could let pa.s.s. Look, if political leaders had to chase up every false or distorted story about their motives, they would be full-time press fact checkers. But this was qualitatively different. People were giving their lives in Iraq. They could forgive an error. They couldn't forgive a deception. Besides anything else, it meant I had deliberately misled the House of Commons. That in itself, if true, would mean resignation and disgrace.

From the outset, I tried to get Greg and Gavyn to see it. Here's where my friends.h.i.+p with both was a hindrance not a help. The Mail Mail had been running a campaign attacking them as stooges. They wanted to prove their independence. Greg had also been personally anti-war and couldn't really see that as Director General of the BBC he had to remain neutral. had been running a campaign attacking them as stooges. They wanted to prove their independence. Greg had also been personally anti-war and couldn't really see that as Director General of the BBC he had to remain neutral.

All I needed was for them to accept that the story was untrue. They could attack the government all they liked, but the allegation of impropriety should be withdrawn. They wouldn't. Gavyn kept saying it wasn't the function of the BBC governors to investigate the truth of the allegation a bizarre position since that was precisely what they should have done. Greg who could be very obstinate tried to maintain that the broadcast was accurate because the forty-five-minutes claim was wrong, which, as I constantly said, was not the point.

Anyway, I could bore you to tears with my side of the issue and no doubt they could with theirs. What happened subsequently was more serious and tragic.

The Gilligan allegation led to a rash of others. The Foreign Affairs Committee decided it should investigate, and we were slap bang into what turned into a six-month battle of immensely time-consuming, wearing, dispiriting and draining efforts to clear our collective name.

It became apparent in early July who the source was for the Gilligan story. Dr Kelly offered himself up. He admitted that he had also talked to Susan Watts at Newsnight Newsnight, but her reports had been a lot milder and less inflammatory, though even those had the quite wrong allegation that there had been a dispute over the forty-five-minutes claim between the intelligence services and Downing Street, which was not the case. There had never been a discussion of it, since we never knew of it until the JIC put it in the dossier.

I will never know precisely what made Dr Kelly take his own life. Who can ever know the reason behind these things? It was so sad, unnecessary and terrible. He had given such good and loyal service over so many years. Probably, unused to the intensity of the pressure which the Gilligan broadcast generated, he felt hemmed in and possibly vulnerable to internal discipline if his role emerged. I don't know and shouldn't really speculate. I met his family later at Chequers, at my request, and very dignified and sensible people they were. The awful irony was that for all the controversy caused, Dr Kelly himself had long been an advocate of getting rid of Saddam.

How Dr Kelly's name came out was the subject of a significant part of the Hutton Inquiry. That too was the subject of brutal media allegations, particularly against Alastair. It was suggested that he had leaked the name in breach of instructions from the Ministry of Defence. He hadn't. It was simply that once we knew it was Dr Kelly, and since the Foreign Affairs Committee was engaged in investigating the forty-five-minutes claim and broadcast, we would have been at risk of a charge of concealment from them had we known the source of the leak and refused to say. In fact, the whole thing was handled by Dr Kelly's line management, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, Sir Kevin Tebbit, and by Sir David Omand, the Security and Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet Office, at my insistence. His name was released on 10 July, and unsurprisingly the Foreign Affairs Committee immediately said they would interview him.

On 15 July he was interviewed. He denied he could have been the source of the Gilligan story since he disputed it. In particular, he said he had never thought or said that Alastair was responsible for inserting stuff into the dossier. The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) was also conducting its own inquiry. He had to give evidence to them as well; and in the course of it said he thought the dossier was 'a fair reflection of the intelligence that was available and presented in a very sober and factual way'.

I had a rough PMQs on the back of it all on 16 July. The BBC were refusing to say whether Dr Kelly was their source. The Foreign Affairs Committee had decided that he wasn't and reprimanded the government. I was outraged by the BBC position. It was all very well for them to hold to the traditional journalistic practice of not revealing their source, but this was patently an exceptional case. Here someone was being described as the source. They could confirm or deny his involvement. They didn't need to name who it was, if it wasn't Dr Kelly. Just say that there was someone else. But, of course, they didn't dare, since if they admitted it was only Dr Kelly and since he had denied saying what they alleged, they would have had to have withdrawn the story as originally broadcast. This, they were d.a.m.ned if they were going to do.

That evening I flew to the US. The next day I was due to address both Houses of Congress. It was a big moment. I wrote the speech on the way over and the next morning. It was one of the most important and, in my judgement, best speeches I made.

. . . This is a battle that can't be fought or won only by armies. We are so much more powerful in all conventional ways than the terrorists, yet even in all our might, we are taught humility. In the end, it is not our power alone that will defeat this evil. Our ultimate weapon is not our guns, but our beliefs. There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's saviour. There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's saviour. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictators.h.i.+p; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictators.h.i.+p; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police. The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defence and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty. We must find the strength to fight for this idea and the compa.s.sion to make it universal. Abraham Lincoln said, 'Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.' And it is this sense of justice that makes moral the love of liberty. The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defence and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty. We must find the strength to fight for this idea and the compa.s.sion to make it universal. Abraham Lincoln said, 'Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.' And it is this sense of justice that makes moral the love of liberty. In some cases where our security is under direct threat, we will have recourse to arms. In others, it will be by force of reason. But in all cases, to the same end: that the liberty we seek is not for some but for all, for that is the only true path to victory in this struggle . . . In some cases where our security is under direct threat, we will have recourse to arms. In others, it will be by force of reason. But in all cases, to the same end: that the liberty we seek is not for some but for all, for that is the only true path to victory in this struggle . . .And this is not a war of civilisations, because each civilisation has a unique capacity to enrich the stock of human heritage. We are fighting for the inalienable right of humankind black or white, Christian or not, left, right or a million different to be free, free to raise a family in love and hope, free to earn a living and be rewarded by your efforts, free not to bend your knee to any man in fear, free to be you so long as being you does not impair the freedom of others. That's what we're fighting for. And it's a battle worth fighting. And I know it's hard on America, and in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I've never been to, but always wanted to go, I know out there there's a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, 'Why me? And why us? And why America?' And I know it's hard on America, and in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I've never been to, but always wanted to go, I know out there there's a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, 'Why me? And why us? And why America?' And the only answer is, 'Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.' And the only answer is, 'Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.' And our job, my nation that watched you grow, that you fought alongside and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in our alliance and great affection in our common bond, our job is to be there with you. You are not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for liberty. And if our spirit is right and our courage firm, the world will be with us. And our job, my nation that watched you grow, that you fought alongside and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in our alliance and great affection in our common bond, our job is to be there with you. You are not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for liberty. And if our spirit is right and our courage firm, the world will be with us.

The reception was ecstatic. They got up and applauded throughout, a total of thirty-five times. But then they have always been generous to their speakers.

In later times, congressmen and senators have frequently mentioned it to me. The thing is: it did have an argument to it, and though the Republicans loved the tough security stuff, the Democrats could agree on the broader agenda in the speech involving climate change, Middle East peace, Africa and social justice. The problem was that this, in a way, describes my political weakness. The right agreed partly; the left, partly. But very few in whole!

After the speech Cherie and I went back for dinner with George and Laura, who were, as ever, gracious and welcoming. I think he was genuinely impressed with the speech and it was a relaxed and generally happy evening. At that point, we had won. Saddam had gone. From George's perspective, the regime had been changed and with relative ease. From mine, the UN was now back in the mix and there was a prospect of the international community coming together again. It was the last easy evening contemplating Iraq.

We left reasonably early. Alastair had gone back to the UK. I was due to fly to j.a.pan and South Korea for a long-promised visit. Cherie and I drove to the Andrews Air Force Base outside Was.h.i.+ngton. It would be a long flight. We changed into BA sleeper suits and went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Sir David Manning woke me. 'Very bad news,' he said.

David was calm, matter-of-fact, and a brilliant adviser, someone of deep integrity, great loyalty and not insignificant courage. He had been a ma.s.sive support throughout the whole Iraq business. He was due to leave soon and go to Was.h.i.+ngton as amba.s.sador. 'David Kelly has been found dead,' he said, 'suspected suicide.' It was a truly ghastly moment.

Of course, in a rational world, it would be a personal tragedy. It would be explained by the pressure on him. It would be treated as an isolated event. I knew there was not the slightest chance of that happening in our media climate. It would be treated as a Watergate-style killing. It would provoke every manner of conspiracy theory. It would give permission for any and every fabrication of context, background and narrative. The media would declare it was a scandal. They were absolutely capable of ensuring there was one.

I often go over the decision to hold the inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, taken in those early hours, exhausted, on the flight across the Pacific, by means of the unsecured plane phone. I spoke to Charlie Falconer, who had succeeded Derry as Lord Chancellor. He agreed to find a judge. It had to be someone utterly impeccable, impartial, someone whom no one could allege was New Labour or even knew us. If necessary, we would do it in public, though I had no idea just how much there would be and how long it would take. Eventually, Charlie came back with the suggestion of Lord Hutton, the former Northern Ireland judge, a law lord, someone who definitely fitted the description. He was indeed, by all accounts, of unimpeachable integrity. We appointed him then and there.

Maybe I should just have slogged it out. Maybe I should have just refused to be overwhelmed by the ferocity of the onslaught. But, though, naturally, I was wanting to clear my name, that wasn't the main motivation. From the outset, deprived of a real policy attack on New Labour, this alternative attack of being a government of 'spin', of 'deceit', of me as a 'liar', had taken root. It was part of what modern politics was becoming: personal attack, not political debate. In normal circ.u.mstances, in debates over the run-of-the-mill type of political issue, such brutal exchanges didn't go far. It was in the 2001 election that the Tories had first called me 'Bliar'.

However, this was about a decision to go to war. In this instance, could we really just tough it out? Weren't we obliged to have it investigated? Maybe. Maybe not. But at that time, I felt: enough is enough. Let it all be brought out in the open. Let us be utterly transparent. Let the truth be told. Then surely, with an objective judgement by a professional judge, people will accept the ruling. Surely. Surely? On balance, I still think it was worth it. Maybe, in time, it will be seen for what it is; but back then, after six diverting months, it was hard to see the positives.

I won't go through each and every point of the evidence. Read the report, I recommend. It was unprecedented for the prime minister and all senior officials to give evidence like this. There had never been anything like it. It was due to conclude in October. Lord Hutton finally published the report at the end of January 2004. It went over the dossier, its compilation, the role of Alastair, the activities of each minute section of the Ministry of Defence and Downing Street, what Dr Kelly did, and went over it all exhaustively. This was part of the conclusion: The dossier was prepared and drafted by a small team of the a.s.sessment staff of the JIC. Mr John Scarlett, the chairman of the JIC, had the overall responsibility for the drafting of the dossier.The 45-minutes claim was based on a report which was received by the SIS from a source which that Service regarded as reliable. Therefore, whether or not at some time in the future the report on which the 45-minutes claim was based is shown to be unreliable, the allegation reported by Mr Gilligan on 29 May 2003 that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was wrong before the government decided to put it in the dossier was an allegation which was unfounded.As the dossier was one to be presented to, and read by, Parliament and the public, and was not an intelligence a.s.sessment to be considered only by the government, I do not consider that it was improper for Mr Scarlett and the JIC to take into account suggestions as to drafting made by 10 Downing Street and to adopt those suggestions if they were consistent with the intelligence available to the JIC.The BBC management was at fault in the following respects in failing to investigate properly the government's complaints that the report in the 6.07 a.m. broadcast was false that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was wrong even before it decided to put it in the dossier.There was no dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous strategy by the government covertly to leak Dr Kelly's name to the media.

What the judge found was all he could find, really, on the evidence. But it was a seminal moment in the way the media behaved.

The judge, of course, had come under the most intense media pressure. He had stood up to it well, but in the days preceding publication I was worried, not about the facts, but about whether he really would feel able to judge on them. Up to that point, the media had been egging him on: he was a man of Ulster granite; he would put the government spin doctors in their place; he would be unafraid to call a lie a lie, etc.

When I was his pupil, Derry used to tell me that there were two types of judges: those who made up their mind, but left loose ends, something for the losing side to cling to, something that expressed the judge's own inner hesitation about making a clear decision; and those who made up their mind, and once of that view, delivered the decision complete, unadulterated and unvarnished, with every allegation covered and every doubt answered. Lord Hutton was of the latter kind.

It was a comprehensive judgment, comprehensively delivered. Michael Howard, responding to it in the House, stupidly tried to carry on as if the judge hadn't found as he had, a bad mistake and one which heightened the sense of him as an opportunist who supported the war and, now it was tough, wanted to access some of the anti-war sentiment.

For us, it was a huge relief, but in our relief, we made our own mistake, a serious one with severe consequences. I had been having private conversations with Gavyn Davies throughout, keeping lines open and ensuring our entire relations.h.i.+p with the BBC was not jeopardised. After all, they were the main news outlet of the nation.

We had agreed in the course of these discussions that in the event of the judgment finding fault, we should try to keep the temperature down on both sides. The last of these conversations took place just before Hutton declared his verdict and I rea.s.sured Gavyn that we would not be asking for anyone's head if any in the BBC were criticised.

The day the report was published 28 January was hugely busy for us. The close team sat in the Cabinet Room with trepidation and antic.i.p.ation, awaiting copies which G.o.dric Smith, who had been Alastair's number two, brought in. I joined them and we scoured the conclusions hungrily and there was an audible collective sigh of relief as we realised he had found in our favour; and then genuine amazement that he had had the courage not to dress it up for the BBC, but to call it as it was.

I then had to prepare my statement to the Commons. It was only the day after we had narrowly survived the tuition-fee vote and both events had taken it out of me. I just wanted to go back to my den and write my statement.

Alastair said he also wanted to do a statement. He had left Downing Street by then, but had come back to receive the report, as one of the main actors in the drama. We were still very close. Reluctantly, I agreed. In fact, I think he would have insisted. He wrote some words out. The statement included a pa.s.sage about how if he or someone under him had been found guilty of such a thing the judge had essentially found that the BBC broadcast was not just wrong but they had known it was heads would have rolled. I took it out, much to his dismay, and he protested vigorously. He couldn't understand why. As I had agreed with Gavyn, I had told no one about our conversations, apart from Anji. So, Alastair didn't know why I was so vehement that the pa.s.sage had to come out.

I had, insensitively and foolishly, not quite appreciated the strain Alastair had been under. He is, as I have said, a highly strung character. Believe it or not, I only really understood this to its full extent when I read his diaries. I hadn't realised that the months since he had left had been lived in agony about the verdict. Of course, having left Downing Street he didn't have the all-enveloping nature of the job to distract him. His life had been on hold. Meanwhile, he was still regularly accosted in the street and accused of murdering Dr Kelly, and receiving hate mail, often with bloodstains on it, at his family home. So, for him, this was a moment of enormous emotional release. But all the anger bottled up inside and Alastair had a lot of that in him also erupted. He wasn't thinking, he was las.h.i.+ng out.

When he came to make his statement, which he did with an emotion I could see was inspired by sadness about the whole business, but others would see as revenge on the media he had come to hate, he had put the pa.s.sage about 'heads rolling' back in, in milder form but still there.

Even then, I could have rescued the situation. But I was insufficiently focused on the BBC; rather I was preparing my House of Commons statement, clearing my name and whacking Michael Howard for his opportunism. In any event, I thought Gavyn would call me before doing anything. I made my statement. It went well. I then went on a visit to a college. As I did a doorstep afterwards, I was still unsure exactly what the BBC had decided to do. I should, however, have said there and then that I didn't want anyone dismissed over it. Instead, I just concentrated on saying all I ever wanted was the withdrawal of a wrong story that reflected on my integrity.

It was a mistake. Gavyn, I think, a.s.sumed I had rescinded my side of the bargain, given the severity of the judgment. He and Greg both resigned. I really didn't want that. Greg was just Greg and was never really suited to the BBC, but Gavyn was a decent and honourable guy and I felt I had let him down.

It also helped provoke the media into a fightback. For about twelve hours, they were stunned. Then, with the Mail Group and the BBC again in alliance one of the most sorry aspects of the whole affair they decided to pit their strength against ours. 'WHITEWASH' screamed the Daily Mail Daily Mail headline the next day. The others took it up. Suddenly the man of Ulster granite was a Downing Street lackey, the BBC were victims of the most awful conspiracy and cover-up, and actually didn't everyone know we were liars anyway? It was wall-to-wall for several days and then topped off with polls showing the public did indeed believe it was a 'whitewash'. So what should have been a way of lancing the boil of mistrust simply reinforced it and made it more poisonous. headline the next day. The others took it up. Suddenly the man of Ulster granite was a Downing Street lackey, the BBC were victims of the most awful conspiracy and cover-up, and actually didn't everyone know we were liars anyway? It was wall-to-wall for several days and then topped off with polls showing the public did indeed believe it was a 'whitewash'. So what should have been a way of lancing the boil of mistrust simply reinforced it and made it more poisonous.

When allegations that we were a government of 'spin' are made and I ask for examples, the dossier is always the one that figures. But, I point out, there was an inquiry (one of four) lasting six months that found the opposite. Yes, but it was a 'whitewash', as we all know.

The basic problem is that the manner of conducting the political debate does not lend itself to reasonable disagreement between reasonable people. The Gilligan broadcast led the news because it alleged misconduct, a lie, in effect. He thought he had a source, but an allegation that serious should at least, you would have thought, be put to the people against whom it was made. We were never even contacted before it was broadcast. In any event, a mere mistake was never going to lead the news.

Now, in actual fact, it should do. The intelligence was wrong and we should have, and I have, apologised for it. So the real story is a story and a true one. But in today's environment, it doesn't have that sensational, outrage-provoking 'wow' factor of scandal. Hence an error is made into a deception. And it is this relations.h.i.+p between politics and media which then defines the political debate. The Opposition feel obliged to join in, otherwise they look like patsies. Instead of the debate being between one view of the country and another, it becomes a battle as to who is 'more honest' or 'less deceitful' than the other, a real mug's game for most of the time in politics.

But anyway, there it was. More serious, in the end, was the developing situation inside Iraq itself. A proper study of the aftermath will be necessary for its own sake but also, most importantly, for the future. The truth is that the likelihood of British troops being engaged in the defence of British soil is remote. The more probable endeavour will be engagement with others, usually the Americans, in far-off lands that fall victim to extremism. How we deal with such a situation needs critical a.n.a.lysis. The question, unresolved, but urgently requiring resolution, is: to what extent are the challenges we faced and face in Iraq or Afghanistan avoidable; and to what extent are they inevitable given the scale of the mission?

Let me explain this further. What happened in Iraq after May 2003 was, at first, relatively benign. There was looting and some violence; some attacks on coalition forces, but they were containable. I have described how the UN was brought back into the picture. In early July, with UN help, we convened an Iraqi Governing Council. It was a crucial moment. It had twenty-five members: thirteen s.h.i.+a, eleven Sunni, one Christian. It came out of a process of consultation. It was the first step to the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. As Sergio Vieira de Mello put it: Iraq was 'moving back to where it rightfully belongs: at peace with itself and as a full partic.i.p.ant in the community of nations'.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, though there were military operations to deal with any lingering Saddamist elements, things were moving to a new state of rebuilding the country, schools reopening, hospitals functioning and police reporting for duty. Down in Basra at the end of June, 17,000 students at the universities took their exams normally.

This is not to say there was no violence in the south. There was a tragic incident in Maysan province on 24 June in which six Royal Military Police officers were killed in the town of Al Majar Al Kabir, situated to the south of Al Amarah. These were isolated attacks. But, even in early 2004, people could drive around Basra, and when the UK representative down there, Sir Hilary Synnott, came to see me on leaving his post in February 2004, he was relatively upbeat.

As Jack Straw outlined in a Commons statement on 15 July, we made it clear that as soon as Iraq was on its feet, we would be preparing to go.

We were receiving generous pledges of financial support from around the world. The Oil Trust Fund was established. ORHA was starting its work and ramping up significantly. In Baghdad the traffic was busy. Mosul and Kirkuk were generally calm. The Kurdish areas naturally felt liberated.

The point is this: we and the majority of Iraqi people wanted the same thing Saddam out, the country helped to its feet, then us out. And a new and representative form of government.

Freezing the frame for a moment at July 2003 is absolutely of the essence in understanding what then happened. Yes, 8,000 Iraqi dead was 8,000 too many, but it was a fraction of those killed year on year by Saddam. Our losses were more than we could have wished for, but fewer than we might have had, and, in return, a nation at odds with the international community and which had started two major wars was now able to be a friend, not a foe.

The notion that what then happened was somehow the ineluctable consequence of removing Saddam is just not right. There was no popular uprising to defend Saddam. There was no outpouring of anger at the invasion. There was, in the first instance, relief and hope.

Yes, of course ORHA might have done better on the reconstruction plans, but that wasn't the problem. We had enough money, effort and people to have rebuilt Iraq within a year of the conflict's end.

What happened was that the security situation deteriorated. It did so in part as a result of Iraqi elements acting of their own accord, of tribal, religious and criminal groups deciding to abort the nascent democracy and to try to seize power. But the critical, extra dimension, the one which translated a difficult situation into near chaos, was the linking up of these internal dissident factions with al-Qaeda on the one hand and Iran on the other.

In the course of this, the terrorists discovered two things: if they could cause terror for ordinary Iraqis, particularly by the use of suicide bombs, the blame would fall on the coalition and the Iraqi government, not on them; and, in respect of the coalition, the pain threshold of the contributing nations losing soldiers was very, very low, and if it could be breached, then the coalition would lose heart not the troops themselves, but the public back home. In other words, if the terrorists could cause chaos, the resulting fear and security clampdown would become a signal that the mission had failed, that the democratic experiment was misguided, and that a return to the old ways was the only path open to Iraq.

Instead of outrage at the evil acts of terror, the reaction was dismay and disillusion about the undertaking. At one level people might understand that the terrorists were the ones we should be fighting; but at another, as car bomb succeeded car bomb and soldiers died not in battle but in the wretched IED attacks, the fact of the carnage obliterated a.n.a.lyses of why we were there and why it mattered. The bloodshed eliminated the hope and brought, in its place, despair.

It may be that it was here that the absence of a broader coalition and the divisions in the international community played their part. But as we watch the same thing happen in Afghanistan, I am not sure that is wholly correct.

The defining moment came on 19 August in Baghdad. A lorry bomb at the UN HQ killed over twenty UN staff, including, tragically, Sergio. It was a ghastly and unforgettable day. I heard the news on holiday. I spoke to Kofi; he was in shock. I later wrote to Sergio's partner. I felt and feel still a deep sense of personal responsibility. I had been anxious for his appointment and had pressed it on Kofi.

At the time I did not quite appreciate the full significance of the attack. It was utterly wicked. The people were defenceless civilians. They were there to help Iraq. They were there with the full backing of the international community; indeed, they were were the international community. But it was a defining moment for other reasons. That was the point at which we should have realised that the conflict had metamorphosed into something different. It was pretty likely the work of al-Qaeda, whose chief in Iraq, al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, had entered Iraq just before the invasion. It was the moment we should have rallied international support and said: 'We take our stand, we will not have the UN pushed out; however it began, this is now a fight against the same enemy we are fighting elsewhere and we stand together.' the international community. But it was a defining moment for other reasons. That was the point at which we should have realised that the conflict had metamorphosed into something different. It was pretty likely the work of al-Qaeda, whose chief in Iraq, al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, had entered Iraq just before the invasion. It was the moment we should have rallied international support and said: 'We take our stand, we will not have the UN pushed out; however it began, this is now a fight against the same enemy we are fighting elsewhere and we stand together.'

Instead, the UN immediately withdrew its staff, and they didn't return in numbers for several years. For al-Qaeda it had worked. They had eliminated the UN presence. They had sown fear rather than defiance. The bloodshed told the story of our failure to protect, not their propensity to kill the innocent.

Even then, however, in the first half of 2004, there were only thirty suicide attacks. The political progress continued. By the first half of 2005, the number had risen to two hundred. By mid-2005, the Sunni insurgency had linked up with al-Qaeda; the Iranian-backed militia started their work destabilising the south. Then they started sectarian attacks on the Sunni. Most of those who died were, of course, Iraqis, but Spain and Italy also suffered the loss of soldiers and civilians, and calls for withdrawal of their forces from their home populations grew instantly and in the end carried the day. Dutch, Danish, j.a.panese and soldiers of other nations were also among the victims, as were diplomats and journalists.

As US forces retaliated, so naturally people were detained, some rightly, some wrongly. In April 2004, pictures were released from Abu Ghraib prison showing American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners. No doubt they were exceptional incidents, and the offenders were prosecuted. But the damage was colossal. For those always opposed to the action, the photographs were a heaven-sent opportunity to blacken the name of the US, while Al Jazeera, and others in the Arab world, used them as a symbol of American att.i.tudes to Muslims.

Similar allegations were made against British soldiers. I did my best to protect soldiers from a witch-hunt but it was hard, and the law officers felt under huge pressure to prosecute. It was a sickening time. Of course such treatment of prisoners was totally unjustifiable and required punishment; but it was so monstrously unfair that these isolated acts of misconduct completely overwhelmed the wonderful work most soldiers were doing to help Iraq and its people.

However, all of this was used to fuel anti-Western feeling on jihadist websites and even in much of the mainstream media. I don't think there was ever a single protest anywhere outside Iraq about the suicide attacks, or the fact that the insurgency was aimed at stopping Iraqi people deciding their own government.

The paradigm was: you invaded; it was your choice; so it's your mess, go and clean it up. It was entirely understandable and, you might feel, justified. But it did ignore one important dimension: the mess was also visited on Iraq by external forces al-Qaeda and militant Islam which we were fighting everywhere. Fighting them in Iraq was not therefore a diversion from the real battle. It had become part of it.

It is this that we failed to convey. I realised very early on that we had to widen the campaign and link it up with the overall struggle. It was also where the combination of soft power and hard power mattered so much; why pus.h.i.+ng forward on the Middle East peace process, reaching out to the moderate and modernising parts of Islam, was so critical.

The al-Qaeda leader in Iraq estimated that between 2003 and 2006 there were thousands of suicide bombs that they successfully detonated. My point is very simple: take those out of the equation and the security task would have been enormously different: tough but manageable.

In particular, as the political development of Iraq proceeded with the establishment of a proper Iraqi sovereign government in June 2004 under Ayad Allawi, a very capable and non-sectarian politician, al-Qaeda realised that the bombing campaign targeting civilians was insufficient. Then after the first proper Iraqi election, a new government was formed and al-Qaeda immediately tried to destabilise it. However, through 2005, despite it all, the majority of Iraqis came out, voted and showed that they wanted their country to stabilise. Very slowly their own capacity began to grow.

So, to deepen the conflict, in February 2006, al-Qaeda bombed the Samarra mosque, the most holy s.h.i.+a site in Iraq. It was a devastating new development. It meant that now the al-Qaeda desire was to provoke sectarian violence. With courage and difficulty, senior s.h.i.+a clerics called for calm. But a pattern was established: soon s.h.i.+a militia groups formed inside and outside of the official forces, and carried out brutal reprisals against Sunnis. Of course, this was exactly the al-Qaeda intention. Some of the suicide bombers were Iraqis, but many weren't, having come in over the border from outside. Some were women; one even a pregnant woman.

Up until early 2004, the south had remained relatively quiet. There were isolated incidents, and sabotage of infrastructure was an increasing problem, but the situation was more or less under control. However, Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical s.h.i.+a cleric with strong links to Iran, was leading s.h.i.+a opposition to the British 'occupation', and rallying support. He began openly to incite violence.

In January 2004, I visited Basra and the new police academy we established at Az Zubayr. It was a good facility and, at that point, we were reasonably confident of the loyalty of the police we were training. Basra continued to get better. But as 2004 wore on, it became clear that some s.h.i.+a forces inside Iraq, and more importantly in Iran, were viewing the political progress in the south with alarm and anger. Despite al-Qaeda, despite Baathist elements in the insurgency, the truth was Iraq was going forward. There were parliamentary and provincial elections. It was tough for the people to exercise their democratic rights, but exercise them they did, and in large numbers. At that time, the voting was on pretty predictable religious and tribal lines, but there were signs of a crossover in some quarters and there was an increasing disposition to vote for people they thought would do the job. Also, the oil money, despite the terrorist attacks on the production facilities, was beginning to flow. All in all, given the total debauching of the country's politics over three decades, and given the absence of real democracy in the region, this was a remarkable achievement.

But of course it was a huge threat and menace to all the elements that opposed the idea of a free, democratic Iraq. Curiously, they had a far clearer and more stark a.n.a.lysis of what was at stake than we did. If Iraq were to settle down as a reasonably well-functioning democracy, Iran would not last long in its present state. Iraqi prosperity would grow as indeed it is now growing and the link between living standards and systems of government would be clear. It is true that with the s.h.i.+a majority in government in Iraq, Iranian influence would be easier to peddle Saddam was indeed an obstacle to that influence but as time has gone on (and as I always thought would happen), Iraqi s.h.i.+as nonetheless regard themselves as Iraqi. When al-Sadr went away, he quickly lost support and his Iranian-backed militia were disbanded in 2007, under threat of force.

However, back in 2004, gradually at first, Basra became increasingly unstable. The first really sophisticated IEDs were used against British forces in March 2004. The first fatality from an IED was in June 2004. These deadly devices became the preferred method of the rogue militia elements attacking British forces. The more we armoured the vehicles, the more explosives they used. The view was that, in all probability, as the devices grew in sophistication and power, they were made in Iran.

Certainly Iran was behind the training and arming of the militia, who, as the time went on, became more determined to take over the south, and Basra, in particular. But many of the factions were just corrupt and criminal.

In her recent book The Surge The Surge, the American military historian Kimberly Kagan describes how over time al-Qaeda and Iran began to work together to unhinge the fragile democratic structures of Iraq. According to her account, by the middle of 2007, Iran was both funding and training al-Qaeda operatives. On several occasions from April through to July 2007, the Americans tried to reach out to Iran to get an accommodation. The Iranians talked happily. But their actions didn't change.

That year saw the highest number of fatalities among the UK forces, most through IEDs. Of course, the British troops were keeping up a constant fight with the militia and hitting back hard each time they were attacked. As parts of the south were handed back to full Iraqi control, operations became more and more focused on Basra. Troops would stay in reserve in other provinces like Maysan, but in essence they were trying to deal with complex political and military challenges in the main city itself.

Back in late 2006, there was a pretty acute sense among the senior command in the army that we had done all we could in Basra. We had, in effect, entered into a modus vivendi with the governor and the militia there. The economic conditions of the people had improved, but the security situation hadn't. The question was: were we a provocation or a support? There was an increasing opinion that it might be the former.

I confess I was always very doubtful about this. Though the conventional wisdom was that Basra had to be managed this way because that was just the reality of it, I was deeply sceptical about the notion Iraqis or indeed anyone else preferred to live like this. But I could understand why people felt it. For some time, our civilian people in Basra had been able to do little, their HQ often locked down for fear of bombs and violence.

In October 2006, while I was at St Andrews for the Northern Ireland negotiation with Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the new Chief of General Staff, gave an interview to the Daily Mail Daily Mail essentially saying that we had reached the end in Iraq, we were as much a risk to security as keeping it and we should transfer our attention to Afghanistan where, in effect, we had a better chance. As you can imagine, I wasn't best pleased, my humour not improved by Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams telling me the IRA would never have had one of their generals behaving like that. essentially saying that we had reached the end in Iraq, we were as much a risk to security as keeping it and we should transfer our attention to Afghanistan where, in effect, we had a better chance. As you can imagine, I wasn't best pleased, my humour not improved by Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams telling me the IRA would never have had one of their generals behaving like that.

I visited Basra again in December 2006 and of course, as ever, found the troops in good heart and determined to take on the enemy. The major general there, Richard s.h.i.+rreff, seemed to have the required mettle. The soldiers told me of an operation they were going to mount against a rogue police unit, which greatly cheered me, and which they carried out on Christmas Day, arresting the whole lot and disbanding the unit.

We then offered to mount a major offensive to take Basra from the militia. We were losing soldiers but that was, in part, because the militia forces controlling the Basra streets knew that as long as we remained, they were in jeopardy. The attacks, unlike those in the centre of the country, were now almost exclusively on British forces, not civilians.

However, for reasons I understood, the new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Maliki did not want the offensive carried out by coalition forces but rather led by Iraqi ones. The British had done a good job with the Iraqi 10 Division and it was clear that in the not too distant future they would be capable of mounting such an operation, albeit with coalition support.

Eventually, in March 2008, Iraqi and US forces, with British support, mounted the biggest and most successful security operation in Basra since 2003, which the Iraqis called Charge of the Knights, and effectively ousted the Iranian-backed and criminal militia from the city. It was an important moment, but I was left with the feeling that had we believed in our mission more and not despaired so easily as indeed the soldiers on the ground showed we would have had a far greater part in the final battle. Our relatively small role in cleaning up Basra in 2008 left a bad aftertaste for our forces.

However, when all is said and done, the truth is the British forces were heroic, they played an absolutely vital and irreplaceable role in stabilising the south and in staying there until the Iraqi force capability was such that Charge of the Knights could be mounted.

It should also be pointed out that from May 2003 the forces of the UK and the US were in Iraq with full and indisputable UN backing. It made no difference to those attacking them. It should have made a difference, however, to those criticising their presence from the outside. But those British Army actions in 2007 were vital in laying the ground for the clearing up of the city in 2008.

In the rest of Iraq, the story was even more b.l.o.o.d.y. As suicide bomb attacks increased, the security situation grew so bad that it became impossible for civilians to help Iraq. They had to have bodyguards if they went out and they too were targets. Criminal elements started to kidnap people for ransom. Religious fanatics began to persecute anyone who disagreed with them. Christians were singled out and intimidated.

The US Army performed absolutely magnificently; they were tough, dedicated and with raw and rare courage. Our special forces together with theirs, in Baghdad, went on one of the little-known missions of the conflict, but one of immense significance for the future. I visited them a few times. Truly incredible people. Brave beyond imagining. And smart, not gung-ho or macho, just intelligent soldiers doing their job and with an utterly clear-sighted view of what was at stake. Essentially they went out after al-Qaeda. Over time, they beat them down. The surge counted, of course, as did the scaling up in capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). But what the special forces did in Iraq was one of the most remarkable stories of the whole campaign and deserves a special chapter in their history. For sure, they badly damaged al-Qaeda's capability and set them back not just in Iraq but worldwide.

I also agreed to put the Black Watch into a mission to help the US forces in Operation Dogwood, in north Babil, in November 2004. I was criticised for agreeing to it and there was the usual nonsense about Brits taking risks for Americans, ignoring the fact that the opposite was also true; but, as usual, the troops themselves were totally up for it and performed with distinction.

By mid-2006, however, it was clear that the Iraq campaign was not succeeding. We hadn't lost control, although we were being fought to a stalemate, and ordinary Iraqis were, unsurprisingly, complaining and saying we had failed to provide security. Articles were appearing comparing the situation unfavourably to that under Saddam. In 2006, according to the Iraq Body Count, almost 28,000 Iraqis died and almost as many were to die in 2007. Most were dying in terror attacks and reprisals, killed not by US or UK soldiers but in sectarian violence. But we, as the coalition forces, got the blame.

In November 2006, George Bush replaced Donald Rumsfeld with Bob Gates. In early 2007, George took the decision to surge US troops. It was a huge decision that I don't think anyone else would have taken. He took it. The surge began in late 2007. It worked. There were many other factors: one was the Sunni outreach and the bringing on board of former Sunni insurgents, an effort led in part by Major General Graeme Lamb, a Brit. Also, the Iraqi government was ramping up the ISF.

In 2008 the Iraqi deaths fell to just over 9,000. By 2009, the figure had come down to under 4,000. By May 2010, it was 850.

So the aftermath was more b.l.o.o.d.y, more awful, more terrifying than anyone could have imagined. The perils we antic.i.p.ated did not materialise. The peril we didn't materialised with a ferocity and evil that even now shocks the senses.

So: could it have been prevented? And was it worth it?

The shortcomings on the reconstruction and essentially civilian side can, as I have indicated, be blamed in part; but only in part. Done more quickly, it might have created a more benign atmosphere and this undoubtedly would have helped. But it is essential to remember one thing: the terrorist activity did not arise from frustration at the lack of progress on reconstruction. It was rather aimed at preventing such progress. Frequently in the south, the British would repair vital infrastructure only for terrorists to blow it up again. The pattern of al-Qaeda operations in the centre and north of the country was directed at intimidating and inhibiting Iraqis from rebuilding their country. These weren't, therefore, expressions of frustration about the pace of change; they were deliberate attempts to sabotage it.

Now it is correct, as I shall say, that a bigger pre-planned effort and a ma.s.sive civilian reconstruction programme would have filled an early vacuum. It would have been an immediate jobs programme for unemployed Iraqis. But my personal view is that it would be naive in the extreme to believe that this in itself would have stopped the violence, the origins of which were profound and political.

With a manageable security situation, any shortcomings could quickly have been overcome (and the same is true in Afghanistan). Security was the issue not one among many, but the the issue. issue.

The disbandment of the army and the de-Baathification are more open to dispute, since they impacted on the security situation. There is a case that both contributed to the anarchy. But it is a case with limits. The truth is the army more or less melted away. The visibility and blanket nature of the initial de-Baathification policy was quickly altered, partly under UK prompting. And it must be remembered that for large numbers of Iraqis, the Baath Party was the embodiment of the Saddam regime, detested, feared, and its continuing existence in any form an obstacle to liberation.

Of the two million Baath Party members, only around 25,000 were excluded from office. It was a far less drastic programme than, say, the den.a.z.ification programme in Germany after the Second World War. When the British in the south initially used a former Saddam general highly competent to keep order, there was an outcry from the people in Basra, who saw him as a hated symbol of the old regime.

With hindsight, both the de-Baathification and the disbanding of the army could and should have been done differently. Possibly if that had happened then, as General Petraeus has suggested, part of the Sunni insurgency would have been tamed. But this is, as I say, a judgement with the benefit of hindsight, and it is fair to record it would be hotly disputed by those taking the decisions at the time, who would tell you that they were actually under pressure to do more.

It is crucial that the right and not the easy lessons are learned from the aftermath. Of course, there will be a natural desire to draw simple, bureaucratic conclusions to say with different ministers at differently const.i.tuted meetings, the outcome would have been different. At least so far as the British effort was concerned, I really think that would be glib and mistaken.

Even on the US side, for all the errors undoubtedly made which the US now accepts to blame those for the chaos and carnage that followed is a leap that has to be very carefully a.n.a.lysed. Rereading the accounts of all the meetings, a.s.sessments and rea.s.sessments, the impression is not that of f.e.c.kless or reckless people taking foolish or rash decisions; but is rather one of people straining to get policy right in a situation that was evolving, twisting and turning constantly, with highly unpredictable consequences for all.

So what lessons would I draw? This matters because we may well be in similar situations in the future.

First, a.s.sume the worst. We believed that Iraq had a functioning Civil Service, that the basic infrastructure of government was intact and capable. It wasn't. Saddam had wrecked the country completely. Without the control exercised by sheer fear and force, there was nothing. Iraq was a total basket case. That will be the likelihood in such situations. Failed states are just that: failed. In every conceivable way, including security. In future we should be prepared for a shadow government to be in formation, ready for deployment as we have provided for, through creating in 2004 what is now known as the Stabilisation Unit, an interdepartmental body that aims to support nations coming out of conflict.

Similarly, the troops needed for the military campaign may well be different from those required for the aftermath, and there was certainly a case for more troops, though it is also fair to point out that in certain parts of the country in the south, for example a greater foreign presence would have been resisted and resented. The point is, however, we should be in a position with sufficient flexibility for us to call on more troops and to have that call answered.