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Thursday, 12 September, 2002, 15:42 GMT 16:42 UK
Newslog
It's Newslog, Nick Robinson's unique diary from the heart of the news. It's a two-way process though, so add your comments too.
Thursday 12 September
What on earth could he be doing there? Envoy to Baghdad? Weapons inspector? Any suggestions gratefully received.
User comment: -----------------------
The war (of sorts) has started If the cuckoo is the first sign of spring, sneers at the BBC's coverage are the first sign that we are heading for conflict. This morning, as I was sitting outside a cafe in Whitehall, sipping my coffee and scanning the Daily Mirror, I was passed by a Downing Street political strategist who said: "Ah I see the BBC's taking its instructions from the Mirror again." The Sunday papers showed the propaganda war hard at work. Several papers screamed out the threat to Britain of Saddam's nuclear weapons. To be fair to Tony Blair, he had in fact said only that there was a threat to British interests in any war involving Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But on this occasion, Downing Street was happy with the Sundays' hysterical write-ups of the threat. Another piece of evidence was the line-up to the second session of the talks at Camp David. After a tête-à-tête between the president and the prime minister, they were joined not just by diplomats but by the spin doctors and speech writers, led by Alastair Campbell on the Blair side and Karen Hughes on Bush's. Separating truth from propaganda is far from easy, though, and cynicism isn't always the best tool. I recall the last dossier the government produced on Al-Qaeda and a man who few of us had heard of called Osama Bin Laden. Plenty of serious people were unconvinced by it, but now of course we've heard him and others openly boast of their involvement in September 11.
---------------------------------- Wednesday 11 September
Political anoraks among you may notice this clashes with the Lib Dem Conference. Along with the trip to Putin's dacha on the day of IDS's speech, Tony Blair's doing his best to help the other parties get their message across!! Why not next week you might ask. Ah, well the famed dossier is not yet ready. ----------------------
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User comment -------------------
Welcome back The finger stabbers are back with a vengeance. The phrase "working people" has been restored to its rightful place, as in: "An attack on Iraq will kill thousands of working people." (Presumably killing the unemployed is OK.) The man to watch, though, is not among those who Tony Blair can easily label "wreckers". It's Derek Simpson, general secretary-elect of Amicus (perhaps better knows as Animus, in the light of its bitter internal struggle).
He's promised to give Tony Blair not a headache, but "an effing migraine", suggesting I trust a new name for the Simpsons of this world - "The Migraine Tendency".
----------------------------- Tuesday 10 September
Boos, jeers, walkouts... they would have been so easy for Tony Blair to cope with. In fact they would have been a gift. Instead there was an agonisingly long period of total blank silence from the delegates. Not even one brought their hands together when he promised to go through the United Nations.
Tony Blair is used to love and to hate. Steely contempt and mistrust is something he's clearly going to have to get used to.
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Stumping ground What's wrong with the doctrine of deterrence when it comes to facing Iraq? After all other prime ministers have faced dictators armed with weapons of mass destruction before and they have not argued for pre-emptive strikes to tackle them. That was a question I put to Tony Blair at his recent news conference, at which he grinned with the weary shrug of a man bored by such high-minded considerations. One of his advisors told me that actually that's the body language he reserves for questions he really wishes you hadn't asked, and to which he hasn't yet thought of an answer for. --------------
Daydreaming... A chance to daydream this morning, en route to the Brothers' Congress in Blackpool. What if Tony Blair weren't prime minister at this troubled time, but instead we were led by a man of the Right such as Jacques Chirac. His speech to the TUC wouldn't, ironically, risk boos and jeers, judging by his interview in the New York Times. He pledged to be America's friend but never a sycophant, he'd warn of the dangers of unilateral action, of any new doctrine of pre-emptive action, and of the arrogance of aiming for regime change. He would then of course condemn Saddam, insisting that the UN take him on and hint that military action might be necessary. The result I suspect would be cheered by all but the most confirmed anti-Americans inside and outside the hall. Odd, isn't it, that New Labour would feel more comfortable with a Gaullist in charge? ---------------------------------------- Sunday 8 September
Tony and George have an agreed strategy that's sensible and measured. Unfortunately they won't tell us what it is. The answer should come on Thursday in the president's big speech to the UN. But here's my guess (which could be proved wrong all too soon!) - a deadline for Saddam to readmit UN weapons inspectors, backed up by the threat of military action possibly on specific targets suspected of storing or producing weapons of mass destruction. The question no-one knows for sure - not perhaps even Tony Blair - is whether even that would be enough for a president who said he wants regime change in Iraq.
It's going to be an interesting few weeks.
------------------------- Saturday 7 September
The "Saddam's got nukes" campaign has already begun, with George Bush quoting a report that Iraq was six months away from obtaining nuclear weapons. That claim caused bafflement among British officials with me at the Andrews Air force base. It seems as though the president may have been referring to a report about what Iraq would have been able to do if it had not been for the Gulf War. However, he created the impression he wanted with the Fox News network here in the US flashing on the screen that Iraq was six months away from obtaining nuclear weapons.
In these days of propaganda we're going to have to look very hard to separate truth from supposition and mere claims.
Why now? Tony Blair knows that "Why now?", is the hardest question he and George Bush have to answer. After all, there has been no invasion - like that of Kuwait - or attack - like that on 9/11 - to justify military action now. Their answer seems to be "If not now, when?". Tony Blair claims that, in the past four years since UN weapons inspectors left Iraq, Saddam has made significant progress in developing weapons of mass destruction. Yet he also admits that "we don't have the faintest idea what has happened in that time". That is somewhat disappointing for those waiting expectantly for the much talked-of dossier of evidence. To win the battle for public and international support he will have to do better than that. Nuclear is the key. Stand by for a massive PR effort to persuade the world that Saddam is on the brink of having a useable nuke. That effort won't be helped though by a characteristically candid interview given by Colin Powell to David Frost (to be shown on Sunday morning).
In it he says that Saddam may not get nuclear weapons for nine years. So Tony and George, why now?
------------------------- If you had seen the procession of Tony Blair boarding his plane to the States you would be forgiven for thinking that Tony and George were going to jam at Camp David. A guitar could be distinctly seen as part of the prime minister's luggage. It turns out to be an "ugly rumour" (get it?*), since the instrument belongs to a shame-faced Downing Street underling - a man now hiding at the back of the plane from an irate Alastair Campbell. His only saving grace is that he did not bring a Stetson and cowboy boots along as well. Come to think of it, any idea what tune they would play if Tony and George did jam together - all suggestions to the usual address. *For those who haven't heard of their work, Ugly Rumours was the band Tony Blair played guitar with back in his student days. ------------------------------------- USER COMMENT You can add your comment or question by using the form below. |
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