On the horns of an impossible dilemma

Published on Sunday 19 September 2004 01:17

THERE’S a great political tradition of leaking information which undermines the government of the day.

The government dismissed the leak as just another painful prod at its most vulnerable wound, but they did reveal some pretty devastating details. A year before Britain joined the attack on Saddam, the Prime Minister was told by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that no one could predict the outcome; the Cabinet Office Overseas and Defence Secretariat suggested the result would be "many years" of rebuilding.

Sir David Manning, Blair’s foreign affairs adviser, warned the Americans risked failure in Iraq because they underestimated the difficulties there; and Foreign Office policy director Pete Ricketts complained that the case for war to prevent WMD was not a good one - and at the same time claimed George W Bush was seeking a "grudge match" with Saddam - presumably to finish off the job left undone by his father in the first Gulf war.

Two and a half years on, with 33 British soldiers among nearly 1,000 allied dead and more than 10,000 Iraqi civilian fatalities, these revelations are manna to those who always opposed the war, and confirm the worst fears of many who supported it, especially the extent to which this country was led into conflict in the belief that Saddam was a growing threat to his neighbours and ourselves. They add more weight to the claim that the main impulse to war was the determination of one man and a cabal of extreme neo-conservative advisers to re-engage with a hated old enemy.

Justifiably infuriated by the atrocities of 9/11, President Bush and his team were then emboldened by early success in Afghanistan and decided that regime change should become a rolling programme. Tellingly, the leaks expose the lack of any meaningful White House strategy for the aftermath of invasion, although they also suggest that oil interests were just as far from the minds of Bush’s sabre-rattling sidekicks.

The source of the leak is a mystery, although, as US commentator James Reston once said, "a government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top". It is hard to see what senior politicians and officials could gain from publication of details of this country’s preparations for war, though they do show that civil servants, political advisers and Straw were smart enough to foresee the problems that lay ahead.

We now know in chilling detail of the almost impossible dilemma that faced Blair as it became clear that nothing was going to stop Bush going to war. Was it best to stand aside, tut-tutting from the sidelines like the self-interested French, or take Bill Clinton’s advice and stay close to Bush? In the end Blair restrained Bush temporarily by seeking overt UN approval for action, but when it became clear that he could not prevent war, he took a deep breath and lined-up with the US. That is a decision the Prime Minister will have to justify at the ballot box.

The leaked papers should have electoral significance even sooner, in that they have handed Democrat candidate John Kerry a gift for his bid to remove Bush from the White House. Kerry has proved adept at botching opportunities but he’s unlikely to get a better chance to revive his flagging chances.

Tragically, what the papers can’t do is point to a way out from the anarchy that Bush has created and the predicted years of chaos have come to pass. A good time for defence cuts? We think not.