diamond geezer
Oct 17, 2004, 04:16 AM
link (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=572936)
They felt it was their duty. Six of Britain's leading experts on Iraq trooped into No 10 Downing Street on a Tuesday afternoon in November 2002, determined to warn Tony Blair that occupying the country would be difficult at best and catastrophic at worst. By the time they left, most were convinced that war was inevitable - and, in the view of one at least, that there was nothing the Prime Minister could do about it. The experts were not there to talk Tony Blair out of invading Iraq. "It was made clear to me beforehand that we could not talk about the advisability of war, only about what the aftermath might be," said Professor George Joffe, of King's College London and Cambridge University's Centre of International Studies. The Downing Street meeting "was not a lobbying exercise against an invasion", said Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King's College, at whose initiative it was held.
Dr Toby Dodge of London University's Queen Mary College, had just returned from a visit to Baghdad. "Our basic message was that if you choose to invade, it will be much, much more difficult than you may have been led to believe," he said. "I thought an invasion was a really bad idea."
According to Dr Dodge, most of the group - whose other three members were Professor Michael Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at King's College, Dr Charles Tripp of London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, and Steven Simon, then deputy director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) - shared his pessimism.
The six men represented a formidable body of knowledge about Iraq's politics, history and economy. To hear what they had to say, the Prime Minister was joined by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, Sir David Manning, then Mr Blair's foreign policy adviser and now British ambassador in Washington, Jonathan Powell, No 10's chief of staff, Edward Chaplin, then director of the Foreign Office's Middle East and North Africa department, appointed as Britain's ambassador to Iraq in June, and Mr Blair's then private secretary, Matthew Rycroft.
Over the next hour and a half the experts sought to take Mr Blair and his senior colleagues through a number of possible post-invasion scenarios, ranging from simply replacing Saddam with another dictator, though one sympathetic to the West, to a messy slide into civil war and fragmentation of the country along ethnic, religious and tribal lines.
"Much of the rhetoric from Washington appeared to depict Saddam's regime as something separate from Iraqi society," said Dr Dodge. "All you had to do was remove him and the 60 bad men around him. What we wanted to get across was that over 35 years the regime had embedded itself into Iraqi society, broken it down and totally transformed it. We would be going into a vacuum, where there were no allies to be found, except possibly for the Kurds. We were saying: 'Be prepared to spend a great deal of time and money. This could take a generation.'"
what struck several of the experts was the lack of response. "There was no real argument," said one. "You sensed they were heading into a war they couldn't avoid. Although we were sitting at the cabinet table, the decisions were being taken on the other side of the Atlantic."
According to Dr Dodge, who was first to speak at the meeting, the Prime Minister said little, leaving most of the questions to Mr Straw. There was "a lot of glum silence and note-taking on the other side of the table". Professor Clarke's recollection was that Mr Blair and his officials were attentive, and "did not dissent" from the experts' opinions.
But others felt the Prime Minister was not really listening. "He was dismissive of our arguments," said one, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It seemed as if he was just going through the motions. I think he'd made up his mind already."
Another said: "I was staggered at Blair's apparent naivety, at his inability to engage with the complexities. For him, it seemed to be highly personal: an evil Saddam versus Blair-Bush. He didn't seem to have a perception of Iraq as a complex country." He recalled that the Prime Minister had interjected only occasionally and cryptically. At one point he had exclaimed: "But he [Saddam] is evil, isn't he?" Later Mr Blair said of Saddam: "But he's got choices [over being good or evil], hasn't he?"
When it was asserted that little could be achieved in Iraq without a resolution of the Palestine crisis, because that was the major source of Arab and Islamic anger towards the West, Mr Blair responded: "Yes, we must do something for the Palestinians."
The Prime Minister is credited with getting this point across to George Bush, who set out the "roadmap" for Middle East peace a few months later. The President has since been accused of neglecting the process, however, and Mr Blair has told friends he has won from Mr Bush a "firm promise" to restart negotiations if re-elected next month.
They felt it was their duty. Six of Britain's leading experts on Iraq trooped into No 10 Downing Street on a Tuesday afternoon in November 2002, determined to warn Tony Blair that occupying the country would be difficult at best and catastrophic at worst. By the time they left, most were convinced that war was inevitable - and, in the view of one at least, that there was nothing the Prime Minister could do about it. The experts were not there to talk Tony Blair out of invading Iraq. "It was made clear to me beforehand that we could not talk about the advisability of war, only about what the aftermath might be," said Professor George Joffe, of King's College London and Cambridge University's Centre of International Studies. The Downing Street meeting "was not a lobbying exercise against an invasion", said Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King's College, at whose initiative it was held.
Dr Toby Dodge of London University's Queen Mary College, had just returned from a visit to Baghdad. "Our basic message was that if you choose to invade, it will be much, much more difficult than you may have been led to believe," he said. "I thought an invasion was a really bad idea."
According to Dr Dodge, most of the group - whose other three members were Professor Michael Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at King's College, Dr Charles Tripp of London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, and Steven Simon, then deputy director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) - shared his pessimism.
The six men represented a formidable body of knowledge about Iraq's politics, history and economy. To hear what they had to say, the Prime Minister was joined by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, Sir David Manning, then Mr Blair's foreign policy adviser and now British ambassador in Washington, Jonathan Powell, No 10's chief of staff, Edward Chaplin, then director of the Foreign Office's Middle East and North Africa department, appointed as Britain's ambassador to Iraq in June, and Mr Blair's then private secretary, Matthew Rycroft.
Over the next hour and a half the experts sought to take Mr Blair and his senior colleagues through a number of possible post-invasion scenarios, ranging from simply replacing Saddam with another dictator, though one sympathetic to the West, to a messy slide into civil war and fragmentation of the country along ethnic, religious and tribal lines.
"Much of the rhetoric from Washington appeared to depict Saddam's regime as something separate from Iraqi society," said Dr Dodge. "All you had to do was remove him and the 60 bad men around him. What we wanted to get across was that over 35 years the regime had embedded itself into Iraqi society, broken it down and totally transformed it. We would be going into a vacuum, where there were no allies to be found, except possibly for the Kurds. We were saying: 'Be prepared to spend a great deal of time and money. This could take a generation.'"
what struck several of the experts was the lack of response. "There was no real argument," said one. "You sensed they were heading into a war they couldn't avoid. Although we were sitting at the cabinet table, the decisions were being taken on the other side of the Atlantic."
According to Dr Dodge, who was first to speak at the meeting, the Prime Minister said little, leaving most of the questions to Mr Straw. There was "a lot of glum silence and note-taking on the other side of the table". Professor Clarke's recollection was that Mr Blair and his officials were attentive, and "did not dissent" from the experts' opinions.
But others felt the Prime Minister was not really listening. "He was dismissive of our arguments," said one, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It seemed as if he was just going through the motions. I think he'd made up his mind already."
Another said: "I was staggered at Blair's apparent naivety, at his inability to engage with the complexities. For him, it seemed to be highly personal: an evil Saddam versus Blair-Bush. He didn't seem to have a perception of Iraq as a complex country." He recalled that the Prime Minister had interjected only occasionally and cryptically. At one point he had exclaimed: "But he [Saddam] is evil, isn't he?" Later Mr Blair said of Saddam: "But he's got choices [over being good or evil], hasn't he?"
When it was asserted that little could be achieved in Iraq without a resolution of the Palestine crisis, because that was the major source of Arab and Islamic anger towards the West, Mr Blair responded: "Yes, we must do something for the Palestinians."
The Prime Minister is credited with getting this point across to George Bush, who set out the "roadmap" for Middle East peace a few months later. The President has since been accused of neglecting the process, however, and Mr Blair has told friends he has won from Mr Bush a "firm promise" to restart negotiations if re-elected next month.
