The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries by Campbell Alastair

effort was going to have to be co-ordinated internationally. TB said the humanitarian operation was every bit as important as the military. Boyce said the only viable bases will have to be in a contiguous country. Iran is a no-no, the Americans won’t go near Pakistan. The ‘Stans were being difficult, messing us around. Condi Rice was sure the Russians were playing games. Boyce warned that the Taliban were brutal if they got their hands on enemy forces, capable of skinning them alive. It’s called a hair-shirtpolicy. General [Anthony] Pigott [Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments)] did a really interesting presentation setting out the concept of military action working at various levels, including the psychological and the need to win hearts and minds, but again there was no sense of the Americans getting how to do that in a joined-up way.
    TB felt that Bush could afford to wait if he gave a sense of forward strategy but it was lacking at the moment. We went straight from that to Cabinet which was really TB, Jack, Clare, Geoff and DB briefing them. TB on the overall strategy, Jack on the Middle East peace process, Blunkett on civil contingencies and race relations, in which he expressed his anger at the BBC constantly giving lunatics a platform, and Clare on the humanitarian effort, and Geoff giving a military update. Then GB doing a big number on the economy, including, as he had already briefed to the press, that the reserve was pretty much gone and they would have to stick to their spending plans. Foot and mouth had already cost us £2 billion extra. He rattled through some bad figures from Europe and America, said we were better protected than most economically but we still had to bear down on spending. TB’s view, expressed on the basis of what they briefed, was that it was a silly message because it would add to public concern and lack of confidence.
    I grabbed Clare as she left and said we needed her out motoring on the humanitarian effort. Later she announced more money for Pakistan. Just as GB was demanding a date for TB’s departure, so Fiona was asking me for a date too. She feared we were heading for another period of international crisis when I would be anywhere but home. She had become really bitter and angry about TB, and I wondered if that wasn’t just an easy way of making it not about me.
Friday, September 28
    Went in to work on the conference speech, worked up the script for the Sundays to keep the focus on the nature of the Taliban. There was a growing sense of drift, that the US didn’t really know what to do. Peter Hyman and I went home to work on the speech.
Saturday, September 29
    TB spoke to Bush and felt he was still unclear on his own strategy. The media here and there was pretty much geared up, with wall-to-wall war build-up. TB was working on the speech at Chequers and felt comfortable with the draft so far. I took Rory to Spurs vs Man U who came from behind to win 5–3.
Sunday, September 30
    Up at 6 and off at 7 to Chequers with Peter H. We arrived to the sight of TB still not dressed and fretting about difficult questions of domestic terror and what more we could do to deal with those successfully abusing our laws here. Peter and I had worked up a new ending for the conference speech and TB was by and large perfectly happy with what he had done. Peter was trying very hard to get him to drop stuff that he felt was basically just whacking the party but TB was adamant there had to be a sense of him challenging the party. We set off for
Frost
and in the car went through the lines on extradition, asylum etc. Chris Patten was there reviewing the papers.
    TB had his frightened-rabbit look up to the last minute but the interview went fine even if he got a bit jargonistic, e.g. talking about ‘UBL’ (OBL). We stayed on for breakfast and TB gave Patten and Edward Llewellyn, his right-hand man, a bit of advice about what to do with the Tory Party, basically stay in there and make them