Blair's war

Observing the heart of the government machine

In a Hardtalk interview on August 7, Tim Sebastian speaks to the former editor of The Times newspaper, Sir Peter Stothard who was invited exclusively to spend 30 days with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Downing Street during the war in Iraq.

Click here to watch the full interview

Sir Peter denied that he was - as many of his colleagues were in Iraq - "embedded": "I could write what I liked as long as I didn't publish anything until after it had all finished. I wrote down what I saw each night."

In his book 30 Days: A Month at the Heart of Blair's War, Sir Peter recollects incidents which give an insight into the Prime Minister's state of mind.

Tony Blair would often speak to the Palestinian Authority chairman, Yasser Arafat, and Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen.

"You could tell how tense they were by how the PM sat. He tended to hunch over his desk in conversations with Yasser Arafat. He would lean back in his chair with Abu Mazen."

He oberved President George W Bush and Prime Minister Blair together both formally and informally on several occasions, most notably at Camp David and at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland.

Sir Peter says that Mr Bush and Mr Blair behaved in a business like manner like two CEOs.

"What brought Bush and Blair together was that they agreed on a single idea that after September 11th, the world had changed and it was up to them to adjust global security to take account of that.

Sir Peter said the most interesting thing gleaned during his 30 days in Downing Street was "how certain Tony Blair was" about his course of action.

HARDtalk can be seen on BBC World at 03:30 GMT, 08:30 GMT, 11:30 GMT, 15:30 GMT, 18:30 GMT and 23:30 GMT.

It can also be seen on BBC News 24 at 03:30 GMT and 22:30 GMT