Andrew Rawnsley should have been put in charge of the Iraq inquiry. I've only just started his 800-page book, The End of the Party, but I've already picked up three key facts about Tony Blair's relationship with George Bush that haven't emerged from the Iraq inquiry hearings. Many of the figures interviewed by Rawnsley also gave evidence to Sir John Chilcot and his team. But Rawnsley seems to have asked the more searching questions.
Here are the revelations that struck me.
1. Blair told Bush: "Whatever you decide to do, I'm with you."
The inquiry has heard about the private letters that Blair sent to Bush in 2002. Alastair Campbell told Chilcot that the letters were "very frank" and that the central message was, in Campbell's words: "We share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed." But the letters have not been published and the precise contents remain a secret.
Rawnsley, though, has published a direct quote from one of the letters. Here's the relevant extract from his book.
Towards the end of July [2002], Blair did write a letter to Bush "really making the case for going down the international route" to deal with Saddam …
Yet again, though, Blair had emphasised his "yes" at the expense of the "buts". The July note began: "You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you."
When [Sir Christopher] Meyer [Britain's ambassador to the US] learnt of it, he rang [David] Manning [Blair's foreign policy adviser] in horror. "It's a brilliant note except for this bloody opening sentence: 'Whatever you do, I'm with you,'" the ambassador expostulated. "Why in God's name has he said that again? He's handed Bush carte blanche."
Manning sighed down the phone: "We tried to stop him. We told him so, but he wouldn't listen. That's what he thinks."
A footnote explains that the information in this passage came from interviews with Manning and Meyer.
When Blair gave evidence to the inquiry he said he had always been quite open about the fact he supported Bush in his determination to deal with Saddam. But I don't remember him ever saying in public that he would back Bush "whatever" Bush decided to do. As blank cheques go, they don't get much blanker than that.
2. Blair did not tell his aides much about his private talks with Bush at Crawford
A crucial meeting between Blair and Bush took place in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. The two leaders spent a lot of time talking alone and what they said to each other has been the subject of considerable speculation. Meyer told the inquiry that to this day he still did not know "what degree of convergence was signed in blood" during these private exchanges.
In his evidence, Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, said that Meyer was wrong to suggest that there was any mystery about what was agreed.
"I was at Crawford, David Manning was at Crawford, Christopher Meyer was not at Crawford. He was at Waco, about 30 miles away," Powell told the inquiry. "The prime minister gave us an account of his conversation with the president the previous evening … There was no undertaking in blood to go into war on Iraq."
But Rawnsley has got a rather different version of what happened. He says Blair did not give his aides a full account of his private conversations with the president.
The two men [Blair and Bush] were alone for several hours. "It sent Jonathan [Powell] and David [Manning] mad" because they could not be sure what Blair was signing up to in the absence of any advisers or officials. That was made worse by his reluctance to properly debrief them afterwards. "He'd drive the foreign policy people nuts because he wouldn't give them a readout." When asked by Manning and Powell what he had said to Bush, Blair would shrug: "You know, I can't really remember." It was "partly because he wanted to keep it tight and partly because he just couldn't be bothered".
Rawnsley attributes these quotes to named sources. The "drive the foreign policy people nuts" quote came from an interview with Tom Kelly, Blair's press secretary. The "I can't really remember" quote came from interviews with Manning and Powell. And the "wanted to keep it tight" came from an interview with Powell.
So, according to this version, Blair had a discussion with the most powerful man in the world about going to war and later claimed that he could not really remember what they said. Doesn't sound too good, does it?
3. The Americans did not think the British had attached conditions to their support for an Iraq war
The inquiry has spent some time trying to establish whether Blair attached any conditions when he told Bush at Crawford that he would support action against Saddam. A Cabinet Office paper written in July 2002, which was subsequently leaked, said there were conditions. It said Blair had agreed "to support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met: efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine crisis was quiescent, and the options for action to eliminate Iraq's WMD through the UN weapons inspectors had been exhausted."
But Rawnsley says the Americans did not come away from Crawford thinking British support was conditional.
"I don't remember any quote conditions that were outlined at that meeting," says Andrew Card, Bush's chief of staff. Neither did Colin Powell [the then-US secretary of state]: "It was always a given that Blair would back us militarily, should it come to war in Iraq, so far as I was concerned. Right from the start. He did not attach any conditions to that support. Or none that I can recall anyway."
The Card quote comes from an interview with Rawnsley. The Powell quote comes from Anthony Seldon's book, Blair Unbound.
The inquiry has been trying to establish how much influence Britain had over the US. Blair argued that being close to Bush gave him more leverage than he otherwise would have had. Judging from some of the questions they have been asking, Chilcot and his colleagues have their doubts about this. Rawnsley's revelations will make them even more sceptical.
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