and some of his opinions are not very sound in my opinion. but no doubt if he were alive today, he would reject a lot of my opinions, too. he was a very great man. and like many great men, he had very sharp opinions about an enormous numbers of issues in life.dv university press published at a very modest price a complete reproduction of all mark twain's books and i have them in my library in london. i read them constantly.

i get enormous enjoyment. of course, he's best known for huckleberry finn which is one of the greatest books in the whole of american literature. and i suppose it is his best book. but he wrote many other good books, too. and lots of short essays and entertaining little jour de spirit. and so i salute mark twain but that doesn't mean to say i agree with all his opinions and his opinions about my favorite president theodore roosevelt. >> host: why was theodore roosevelt your favorite president? >> guest: for six good reasons. first of all, he was a very active man. he was always in the saddle or on the move and doing things. he was a hard -- a very hard-working man like winston churchill. secondly, he didn't take anything for granted.

he didn't necessarily take the received wisdom. as a young man he wanted to see it for himself. he went to the far west and the badlands of dakota and all those sort of places and saw for himself. and that was the second reason. the third reason was that he was -- he thought that war was a great evil but also sometimes necessary. and he was determined to see war at close quarters. so he took an important part in the cuban liberation movement and led his own little army of american adventurers during that campaign. and that was the third reason. the fourth reason was that he had a strong idea of american leadership in the world. his most famous saying was -- was speak softly but carry a big stick.

that is always very good advice for an american president. that he should be modest in his use of adjectives and careful in his choice of words. and never boast and never threaten without absolute compelling necessity. but at the same time that america should always have the physical means of fighting for what it believes to be right. and putting down what it believes to be wrong. so speak softly and carry a big stick. and finally, he believed in the open air. he always spent as much as time as he could in the open air. and he founded -- or expanded the american public park system on a very large scale. and i think it is due to a great extent to his leadership and

example and what he did as a president that america has these magnificent public parks and so much of the american wilderness in the public domain and, therefore, can be visited and enjoyed by all american citizens. and indeed by the countless foreigners who come to america, too. so those are the reasons why i like -- i like theodore roosevelt. but perhaps one also ought to add a final reason. the sixth reason which is that he got such joy and pleasure out of life. he was an example to us all. i may say that he didn't always approve of my other great favorite, winston churchill. he said -- they had a lot in common and you'd have thought that he might have approved. because he was somewhat senior to winston churchill. he met him when churchill came

to america. and he said, that winston churchill has no manners. he does not stand up when a lady enters the room. so he was a bit critical of churchill. i dare say critical -- that churchill was critical of him too. >> host: bob from collier, tennessee, you're on with historian paul johnson in london. >> caller: mr. johnson, i read history of the american people a few years ago and you were critical of fdr of the people of the depression and how do you think of the president of the current depression. >> guest: you have to remember that fdr was operating before keynesianism became the favorite sort of solution of middle range or left wing economies.

he was pre-keynesian in that respect. keynes was active and had written a number of books already. but his great treaties on employment interest and money which is the foundation of keynesian theory had not yet been -- was not published until 1936. so that when roosevelt began in '33, he didn't have keynes as a bible. but in some respects, he carried out keynesian policies. i am extremely critical of fdr. i think in a way he prolonged the depression. that is one of the themes that i illustrate in advance in my book. i think if the -- if he had been less of a proto-keynesian, and i

say that because as i say keynes really came after, and more of a conventional economist and had allowed the storm to blow itself out, probably the united states would have come out of recession in 1933 or '34 certainly by '35. as it was it really -- the american economy got back to prosperity only with the beginning of the second world war. that's when the dow jones reached its predepression levels again. with the rearmament that the second world war brought. so it was a very long depression. and i think that fdr was to some extent responsible for that. ...

>> host: you write quite a bit about john maynard kansas. >> guest: he is often misunderstood. he is presented as somebody who says you can spend your way out of a recession or depression. that is only a half truth.

certainly canes believed it was not wrong in times of depression to run a budget deficit. that did not mean he was a spend at all costs. he was much more of a sensible conventional economist than people realized, and i wish that those who quote him as an authority for almost limitless spending would actually read his works, because they will find that there is no justification for that. now, both in the united kingdom under gordon brown, and in the united states under barack obama, there has been an explosion of what i would call vulgar canessannism, that is to

say, the misinterpretation of him in this spending. i think in both cases it's gone too far, and i think this will delay the resumption of a fully-fledged economic expansion. so i think in that respect, canes' less john has been misinterpreted. and i think if he were alive we would take the lead criticizing the huge deficits which are going to be a burden to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandparent. think he would be extremely critical of the spending policies both of barack obama and gordon brown. >> host: brent in portland, oregon, your on will paul johnson. >> caller: thank you for your time. do you have any insight

regarding our current economic crisis with which our leaders could draw upon for inspirational guidance? >> guest: do i have any economic insights which would give me an idea as to what ought to be done? well, i take the view -- and in a way this is rather an old-fashioned view, i suppose -- that running an economy is not all that different to running a family's finances. people seem to think that because a government can print money, it can operate in quite a different world. but the same rules apply to a country as to a family. if you spend too much and you continue to spend too much, and considerably more than you are actually earning, sooner or later you will get into trouble.

and the likelihood is, it will be sooner rather than later. there isn't all that much difference. it is perfectly true that a government can print money and can get away with quite big deficits for some time. but it can't print money indefinitely. it can't get away with deficits indefinitely. seener or later there is a -- sooner or later there is a financial reckoning, and therefore i think it is very good for a president to say to himself, as he sits in the oval office, all right, i can do all these things for the economy, which don't apply to family life, but at the same time would i do this in my own family finances? and if the answer is an emphatic, no, then he should think again and take a bit more advice were authorizing enormous

spending plans. that is my advice to mr. obama, and it's also the advice i give to gordon brown, but he is not going to take it, of course, being a very dogmatic fellow. i hope that mr. obama is still open-minded enough to take the advice to be careful of the deficits and careful of the big spending. he doesn't want to good down in history as -- go down in history as the last of the big spender. >> host: greg in florida. go ahead. >> caller: yes, sir. thank you very much for taking my call. i would just like to hear your view on how winston churchill would have reacted immediately after 9/11. >> guest: i think he would have taken roughly the same view that mr. bush did, that this was a challenge to american sovereignty, a challenge to american way of life, a deadly

challenge to the american people, and that the very gravest view should be taken and fundamental serious efforts made to counteract it. i think he would have declared a state of emergency and taken appropriate measures. what i think if he had been in power for some time, he would have already taken many of those measures that have since been taken. but certainly he would have regarded islamic fundamentalism as a threat to the american people and american state and taken whatever measures in his power. >> host: we have two e-mails that came in, mr. johnson. i will read them both quickly and let you respond. is islamic ascene den si a

threat and how do you view them in england and in europe. >> those for very closely related points. i think the islamic threat is serious. from a demographic point of@ @ b several islamists have told me, we intend -- weak the military is in the west, but we intend to conquer you dem graphically, and i think they have a definite policy of having as many children as they possibly can. as for the assertiveness,

there's no doubt about that, and it is very deeply rooted. american values and british values are threatened by it, and european values, and in some european countries, they already exercise a good deal of power. however, this has to be borne in mind with the long history of islam. islam has had periods of effervescence and fundamental desire to conquer and rule before. these have gone through the same phases of beginning, middle and when they finally come to a stop. so, i'm not at all sure that the present spasm may also prove temporary and come to an end, because i think a lot of

islamists are beginning to realize that militancy doesn't pay; that in order to prosper in the world in the long term, you have to be peaceable, you have to be moderate, you have to be willing to live with other people. you have to trade with them. you have to share things with them. you have to listen to them. and they will, in turn, listen to you. i think the lesson of history is that hard work and honesty and moderation and common sense and decency prevail in the end over militancy, and i think that lesson will be learned, so that possibly within the next ten to 15 years, islam may begin to present a quite different face. in that case, the period of crisis and danger will be over.

of course, if the fundamentalism continues, sooner or later there are going to be very drastic events, but i believe that the west, having freedom on its side, will emerge from those testing times with its essential culture and freedom intact. so i'm not too gloomy about it. >> host: william, you're on with mr. johnson. >> mr. johnson, i have been listening to your program for the last hour or so and one thing you said was -- [inaudible] two short questions, the fun was in reference to i'm a veteran and i was drafted. what's your opinion on the draft? second question is -- this is

black history month. what's your opinion of witson, an african-american historian. >> guest: i wouldn't like to express an opinion on that. on the question of long and short books, i think there's room for both. i have written some very long books in my life, and i now write short books. i'm getting quite old. i'm 81. i will be 82 next year. and i now only write short books. in the past i have written books on big subjects. the history of the jews, for instance. it's impossible to write a good history of the jews which isn't a long book. again, my history of the modern world is a long book because there's a great deal to describe and a great many events to cover, so it had to be long.

and equally, "a history of the american people. " if it's going to be a true history and a useful history, it has to be long, and mine is well over a thousand pages, because a lot of the most interesting things about the history of the american people lies in the detail, and that detail has to be described. so there is a strong case for long books on important, big subjects. but equally, because of the patience of human beings, not least the impatience of young people, there's a case for short books. i have written a number of short books in recent years. one on george washington. one on the renaissance, and here is a short life of winston churchill, because i want to bring in to the churchill story, young people who are impatient with long books, but who will read a short, readable book, and

i want to make them churchill fans, as i am, and to learn the important lessons from churchill's life, which will be of use to them in their life. and, therefore, i think there's a case for long books and a case for short books. i used to write the first, and now i write the second. >> host: and in fact, here's "modern times," "a history of the jews." colin sends us a team. mr. johnson, why is the dictionary listed as one of your favorite books? >> guest: it's an essential book. i don't know if you're familiar with the oxford english dictionary. it's based upon historical principles. so if you look up a word, you not only gate definition of the word -- get a definition of the

word, or a number of definitions if it's used in other senses, then you get a history of the word, and when it was first used, and that history includes a lot of quotations from famous authors, from jeffrey chaucer, and shakespeare and modern times through dickens and zachary, mark twain, and its uses in the 20th century. for instance, it's interesting that -- and i learned this from the oxford dictionary. the first use of the word crunch was the work of winston churchill. he used it in about 1930 in this new sense. he talked of the crunch coming in foreign affairs.

well, that was a sense in which we now use it today, as in credit crunch and so on. so, one learned from that that they of the word goes back to 1930, and the originate for of the use was winston churchill. i find that kind of information fascinating, and that's the kind of information of which the oxford english dictionary, in its full 20 volume set, a surprise on every page. so it's very close to my desk. i can reach out and pull out a volume and consult it when i'm writing an article or a book, and i always learn something from it. it's a huge mine of information, and that's one of the reasons it's one of my favorite books. >> host: steve in kansas city. >> caller: let me first compliment mr. johnson on his incredible accomplishment in "history of the american people"

i fine it to be written by an englishman, but it reads like a motivational novel. i have one question, and i'm glad to be able to ask the question. i fine that mr. johnson treated president harding a lot more favorably than most people have written about him. i think of him as one of the founders of the capitalism that we're seeing so much today. his favorite friends got special deals through relationships with the government. and so i would just like to ask mr. johnson if he still has what seemed to be at least in reading the book, more sympathetic view toward harding than we normally would here in the united states. >> guest: yes, die. i think quite a lot of the americans who go into harding's record actually take the same view as i do.

the trouble with harding was he was a soft-hearted man, and he wasn't tough enough with his friends. it wasn't him. so he didn't himself do anything wicked. it was his friends, and he wasn't discriminating enough with his friend. in some way he was a very old-fashioned month, and -- man, and he ran an old-fashioned campaign. people came to him, they queued up and asked him questions. he was accessible and available. he campaigned in roughly the same way that someone like general jackson did in the first part of the 19 under -- 19th 19th century. he was a man who was there for the public to come and question,

and on sunday he would take a ride through washington on his horse, and he would ride through washington, and people would salute him, and he would stop, and they would ask him questions, and why answer them. again, he was the last president, i think, who answered the front door himself. the bell rang, and out he -- the door of the white house would open, and there would be the president, welcoming you into the threshold, and he would ask you in, and you could ask him questions. when i think of the trouble and business it is getting into the white house today, i think, my, those were the days. so, there's all those kind of nice homely old, fashioned reasons for liking mr. harding, who has had a rough treatment from history, and there are good reasons for respecting him. >> host: arvid e-mails in, do you feel people's influence of

events are the cause of the influence or simply riding waves? hitler would be a prime example of this. >> guest: well, i think that's true. i think it was victor hugo who said, nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come, and if somebody can personify the idea, then, of course, he becomes automatically very powerful himself, and i think there are occasions when people do personify the idea. i have seen it happen in my own observation. for instance in england, during the 1970s, the trades unions were becoming all-powerful, and they were destroying governments

and destroying entire british industries. our ship-building industry, the automobile industry were virtually destroyed by trades unions having too much power and exercising it irresponsibly. now, a president whose idea -- the idea that the unions had to be resisted and overcome was margaret thatcher. that was an idea whose time had come. the public were ready for it. they wanted to see union power reduced. margaret thatcher embodied that idea, and one of the reasons why she won so many elections so handsomely and ruled us for 12 years, the longest of any british prime minister in the 20th century, was because she embodied that idea, and she fought through tremendous battles, one against the coalminers union and one against

the print workers union, and won them both, and she tamed the unions. so she was an example of a person who radiated power because she embodied an idea whose time has koch. >> host: mitch e-mails, why haven't you written a book on abraham lincoln? do you think his is overrated as a president? >> guest: no. i think he is your greatest president. as for writing a life about him, that is precisely what i'm thinking about at the moment. i was asked to write a short life of winston churchill. i did that. that's already published. then the person said to me is there another very important person you could write a life about, short life about? and i said, yes, jesus christ. i have written that life, too, and that is going be to published this year. so now i'm looking for another subject, and one of the subjects

i'm thinking about very seriously is writing a short life of abraham lincoln, because i believe he was your greatest president. i believe he was an absolutely fascinating man, and a very good and decent man, and a very funny man,e@@ sure. and that's what i'm thinking about at the moment. because i'm seriously thinking that he is going to be my next subject. >> host: what was it like growing up catholic in england? >> guest: well, i remember once having an argument with your

writer, james baldwin, who was grumbling to me about how difficult it was to be a black in america and all the prejudice and so on. and i said to him, well, i no doubt what you say is true, but let me tell you there's nothing you can tell me about pledge disk because i was born in england, i was born red are haired,lined, and a roman catholic so there's nothing i don't know about prejudice. if you're red-haired and you do you to school and you're a boy, people expect you to be quarrelsome, difficult, bad-tempered and ferocious, and it doesn't matter how you behave. if you're left-handed, going into the army, they can't bear you because the weaponry -- i don't know if it's still true. all the weaponry is made for

right-handed people, and the sergeant majors don't live you if your left-handed. and in england, if you are a roman catholic, you are suspect. so i was brought up a roman catholic. my parents and family had always been roman catholic. i went to a roman catholic school, educated by the jesuits, so i know all about the prejudice against roman catholics in england, which goes back to the 16th century, and particularly to the gun powder plot of 1605 when guy folk and his companions were planning to blow up parliament, and they were discovered and executed. and ever since then, on november 5th, the british celebrate with fireworks, and

bum fires, they're called to celebrate the fining of the gun powder plotters, and that has kept antia catholicism alive, and it's a handicap in britain. and one think that has reduced the handicap has been an important hallmark came when president kennedy, romeian catholic, was elected president of the united states in 1960 and became president of the united states. that was very helpful to british catholics, too. so, i know what it's like to be prejudiced against, and i know what it's like to be discriminated against. but thank god things are much better than they used to be. >> host: why does religion permeate so many of your books? you have even written a book called "the quest for god."

>> guest: well,'ing is a a -- well, religion is a very important thing in life. my catholicism is very important and always has been important. i studied it. i studied two of the greatest religions in the world, christianity and judaism, so i know a certain amount about it, and ill know how it's shaped -- i know how it's shaped, western civilization and our culture. so i'm very interested in and it constantly reading about it. when you get to be middle-aged. you need to sort out your ideas. when i got to that stage i wrote a book, "quest for god" about what i believed and why i believed and it how i came to believe and it its importance to me. and as i say, i just recently written a life of jesus, which is short and very much on the

four gospels and shows what jesus taught, and the theme of the book is that although jesus lived 2,000 years ago, what he taught had a huge and lasting impact on the whole world, but particularly on western civilization. and the moral of the book is that there are all kinds of things in the modern world, ideas and beliefs beliefs and as and so forth, some of which are good, some of which are bad. but virtually all the ideas and civilized points of view which we have in the modern world, which are good, ultimately have their basis in the teachings of jesus christ. that is why he is a relevant figure today, just as relevant

as he was 2,000 years ago, and that is the theme of my little book. >> host: when will that be published? >> guest: that will be published this year, probably in the summer. >> host: chris in fair banks, alaska, thank you for holding. paul johnson is on the line with you. go ahead. >> caller: ey, mr. johnson, really enjoyed this conversation you have had, and i-some of your heroes are money heroes, too, with george washington, abraham lincoln. but one of my other heroes is electric. >> host: the former president of poland, labor union leader ins the 80s. >> caller: he is one of our great -- he was a great man, and what he did with the union, that

i think really was a big thing as far as bringing down the communistblock. mymy -- communist bloc. have you ever compared the labor movements in england to that in the united states? and are the unions in england -- these people volunteered or are they forced into it sometimes? and -- >> host: tell you what chris, that could lead to a big answer. let's see what mr. johnson has in store. >> guest: well, you raised a very important question, which i have spent a lot of my life trying to consider what i think about it.

the unions were very important to britain in then 1970s, and a great evil because they had too much power in my view, and that was the reason i left the labor party and became a supporter of margaret thatcher because she promised the country she would reform the unions, and by jove she did. working men need to be allowed to protect themselves. employers can be unscrupulous and at times brutal, and the union order employees need to be able to protect themselves. but we must be very, very careful the amount of legal power which we give them. in england, they had far too much legal power, and they abused it. and they have now lost a lot of it. though they still have quite a lot, and they need to be watched very carefully.

i think we must always -- this applies as much to the united states or britain -- we must always be careful to give any institution power which we will not -- legal pour -- legal power which wisconsin we -- which we will not trust to an individual. we must be very careful about giving it to a group of individuals oren institution. that's what what we did in the case of the unions, and it was a terrible error, and we have paid for it. we must continue to correct the error, and it has a broad front to it. if an individual should not be given a certain legal power, then we should not give it to anyone else. institution or a group of individuals, without very careful thought. that is the lesson.

>> host: brian, baltimore. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. and mr. johnson, i'm certainly enjoying this conversation. i would love to hear your opinion about the political correctness as we see more and more of it today, in england and in this country, and also the relationship that the legal profession, which helps to perpetuate this -- might make an interesting book, but i would love to hear your opinion. thank you. >> guest: yes. i'm very glad you asked that question. when communism was in power, and then when in the late 1980s it was destroyed in eastern europe, i thought to myself, this has been a horrible thing, our experience with communism and it

shows how foolish human beings are, to think of a system which can do so much damage and cause so much unhappiness. thank god we're getting rid of it. but i wonder what's going to follow. well, it was already happening even then. the new system of political correctness was even more pervasive than communism, more difficult to combat, and it wasn't the property of any particular state so it wasn't visible. didn't stick up over the horizon. didn't have leaders so you didn't have anybody you could organize against. it was just there i compared it recently to settling on society like a great big cloud of gas and getting into ever crevice of our lives. political correctness is a

system whereby you mustn't be nasty to anybody. well, of course, that has its origins in perfectly decent feelings. but there's already plenty of provisions for that. it has a name, and it's known as good manners. if you have good manners, you don't need to be politically correct because you are already doing everything that anyone can expect. good manners teaches you to be polite to people irrespective of their image or sex or color or creed or religion or beliefs. it teaches you to be decent to treat people with reasonable, civilized equality. good manners is something which can be taught and ought to be taught from the earliest age. if you have a society which is based upon good manners, then you don't need political

correctness. let alone do you need political correction not enshrined in laws and so on, which certainly in britain we have a great and growing number. one thing, we have had 12 years of rule by the labor party in britain. the result of it, the country is absolutely-miles-an-hour -- absolutely miserable, and we have been burdened with a whole set of laws based upon political correctness. so, i regard political correctness as a threat to our happiness and state of mind and decent, contentedness, just as soarous as anything like communism or, for that matter, islam, and i think we have to watch political correctness and pounce upon its excesses whenever they lift their heads above the horizon.

that's my answer. >> host: if people want to read your articles or short stories, where is a good place for them to go? >> guest: well, they can buy my books in book shops. i write quite often to the spectator. i don't do it every week because i'm getting a bit old for that. but i write quite often there. i do almost every month i a piece in forbes magazine, an opinion piece there that is more about business and economics, and i bring in all my idiosyncratic views from time to time. but chiefly i try to commune with readers through little books, like this book of churchill i have just written, and this book on jesus, which is coming out this year. but, of course, i have written, i think, 50 books, or there

thereabouts, i don't know exactly. and you can get the big ones in libraries and so forth. so, like most writers, i live by and through my books, and that's where to find out what i think and believe. and know. >> host: how has the internet changed your@@@ @ @ @ @ rbrbzú@ cottage industry. i have a very good secretary, fortunately, who understands all these machines and does all that's necessary, putting my work in the right way communicate with the whole world. but i can't do it myself, and rye great that, but there it is. there are disadvantages toking about your 80s. you're not always on top of all

the latest technology by a long way, and that's my predicament. on the other hand, when you're in your 80s, you have been through a lot, you have learned a lot, and you have, to some extent, learned to exercise your judgment. so, there are compensations, too. >> host: who is marigold? >> guest: marigold is my wife. and we have been now married almost 53 years, which is a good long time. and i was very lucky to secure her back in 1957, when we got married on march 3, 1957, and i'm lucky still that we are still together. we have got four children, grown up now, and we have just had our tenth grandchild so we have ten grandchildren, and i regard the happiness of family life as the

most important thing in a person's life. it's certainly the most importanting in my life, and i have been singularly fortunate in it. so, i'm sorry marigold won't be watching this program. it's showing in america. but i will tell her all about it when i go home. >> host: she could watch it only if you're connected to the internet on book tv.org. it will be repeated at midnight here in the states and then again next week. will in massachusetts, please go ahead with your question for paul johnson. >> caller: hell hoe. thank you for taking my call. i wonder if you could speak on this. i'm curious about -- i have been reading a lot of this concerning the times before the battle at marathon, there's a very strict military code, and then it appears in the timeline that

greece and -- athens and sparta united against persia of marathon, and then there was the war. and i'm curious what influence there might have been of portion to the persian forces that might have resulted in these military conventions previous to marathon being eliminated. thank you. >> guest: well, i don't think that was the really vital thing there. you see, it was very difficult to get the greeks to unite. they were a series of city states. they believed in the civilization of the city, and that necessarily rather limited them to quite small areas. some of these states, notably

athens, became imperialistic, and began to expand, and they would found little colonies which became imitation athens all over the aegean and later in sicily, in north africa, africa, and the western coast of what is now turkey. and that meant that athens became a very powerful country, and, therefore, aroused the jealousies and hostilities of other greek cities, notably sparta. and that's what led to the war, and the war unfortunately has been described as the time at which ancient greece committed suicide. you could say that because after the war, greece was never -- or classical greece was never the same again, and first of all it was conquered by alexander, who

was really a barbarian, outside the proper greek civilization, and then later by rome, and the war was this act of suicide. you might say by analogy, that the same thing happened to europe in the 20th century, because it fought two wars, 1914 to 1918, and then 1939 to 1945. which were essentially continental civil wars. and that those taken together was an act of suicide on the part of europe, and europe since has lost its empires and has become marginalized. so that is one lesson we can learn from ancient greece. it's still worth studying, he history of greece, knowing uniting against persia and in

fighting the war and committing suicide. >> host: a little more than 15 minutes left with paul johnson. another e-mail from robby. on meet the press this morning, one of our sunday morning political talk shows, alan greenspan and henry paulsen said that a generational crisis facing the u.s. today is the deficit. china sits atop an astonishing level of foreign reserves greater than $2 trillion. british journalist says that not only will china be the next economic superpower but the world order it will construct will look very different from what we have had under american leadership. >> guest: and you want me to comment on this? >> host: yes, sir. >> guest: i don't believe it. it is perfectly true that the deficits are very large, but

they can be eliminated or substantially reduced. that is what we have to set our minds firmly in favor of in the next few years, and a lot of our future will depend upon how we do that. and i think the younger people must insist that the older people take a lead in this and we have created the crisis, we must solve it by cutting down and eliminating or very much reducing the deficit. as for china, the chinese have always made the mistake of thinking that they can sell goods to the world without buying in return. they did this in the 19th century. it was very, very hard to export anything to china, although we were only to glad to boo their silks and tees, and they didn't

want anything that the west produced except opium, which led to the wars because we wanted them to buy more and more opium. now they're tending to do the same thing together. they're saving a lot. putting a lot into gold, they have huge reserves, and they're not buying enough goods from the people to whom they sell goods. that is a mistake which they will have to pay for in the long run. i don't think the chinese are going to take over the world economically leadership. i think i have already said, what matters here is freedom. if you don't have enough freedom, then you won't remain on the top of the economic tree, because freedom is necessary to produce new ideas, new products, new processes, new ways of doing things. that's what made britain the leader in the industrial revolution and what made america

the first great economic superpower and what will keep her there. and i repeat what i said before, that india is taking the proper road to world economic leadership as opposed to china, because india has got economic freedom, it's got political freedom, it's got freedom of speech, et cetera and it's going in for high-tech industries. so i think india is more likely to make a successful challenge to the united states than china. but i would still back the united states, because the way in which america produces freedom, with its political system, its university system, its free expression media and so forth and its love of controversy and exchange of ideas and atmosphere of freedom, will keep it ahead of the rest of the world for the foreseeable future in my opinion. so i would still put my money on

america. >> host: newbery, massachusetts, you're on with paul johnson. >> caller: it's mill berry, massachusetts. critical of churchill, upon his defeat, he said he didn't reside over great britain in its finest our only to see the demise of the empire. when he was a soldier, you're brave. when you're fighting leaders who are spewing air rows or a journalist, or the scorched earth policy that devastated the women and children, killing up to 50,000. so i don't like churchill at all. in world war ii with the bombing. the first time i heard the word holocaust was the bombing of germany.

>> host: mr. johnson. >> guest: well, a number of points there. first of all, churchill was extremely critical of kitchener and his brutality. and in his book, the river war, he is very, very critical of kitchener at a time when i required considerable courage to do. so it is true churchill was old-fashioned about india. he hand been back to india since 1899 and didn't realize the extent to which yeah has changed, and he opposed the grant offering freedom to india, both before and after the second world war. however, once the labor government had given india its freedom, and pakistan its freedom, churchill acquiesced

because he regarded parliamental sovereign and once parliament had spoken, that was the law and re obeyed the law. so he reconciled misdemeanor though freedom given to india. that's the lesson on churchill. he was wrong on many things, but he always bowed to the course of history, and he was prepared to reconcile himself to things which initially he found hostile or undesirable. he learned as he lived, and the longer he lived, the more he learned and that's a lesson to us all. >> host: just to follow that up, phillip sends in an e-mail: can you comment on what might have been in india and palestine had churchill, rather than atway, been prime minister in '7and -- 47 and 48?

>> guest: that's one reason i'm glad that churchill lost the 45 election. very few people expected that. i was 16 at the time, i think. and i remember it. and everyone was deeply shocked or most people were. but it was a good thing. as his wife said, a blessing in disguise. and if churchill had tried to continue british rule in india, there would have been a mess. it would have been a horrible mess. it could have ended in the same kind of mess which the french contrived in vietnam. ere they tried to hang on and drag the united states. the british people spoke in 45, kicked out the conservatives and

gave indiana its freedom. china would have rejoiced that india's position today because it is becoming a great power. he always thought he could. churchill always believed for a tremendous economic potential. the first person to rejoice in that would be winston churchill. it would have been constant life for him to see that more and more indians were being brought out a basis distance economy into western type living standards. he would love to see indians creating high tech industry, it leading the world in many

products. he loved the indians and thought they were capable of great things. >> melissa in kansas city, kansas. >> earlier you mentioned quietly taking place in britain. perez reliable documentation which detailed condensation between prime minister tony blair and president bush. that was painting a united states by plane with a u. n. cote and flying it with low altitude to provoke the iraqi -- to give the united states justification for war.

i clearly remember the british people were against the invasion. earlier he said great powers were responsible is. >> someone once remarks boat in the war the first casualty is the truth. i am afraid states, whether they are dictatorship or not, hardly ever give the full truth as to why they are going to war. we blundered into the first world war which is the greatest catastrophe of modern times from which most of the things that are wrong with the world ultimately spring.

the people in britain will never tell the truth about why we were going to work or prepared to go to war. they wouldn't tell the truth about our lives in france and so on. there is a long history of civilized and law-abiding nation not telling the truth either about the war when it is being fought for the reasons it is taking place in the first place. there is nothing unusual about the iraqi business in that respect. on the whole, i think mr. bush and mr. blair were right to do what they did. where they went wrong was in underestimating the difficulties which would follow in administering in iraq after they won through victory.

that was the difficult thing. they did that because neither of them had read enough history. how it was created, what it was created from. they would have been much more apprehensive about it and taken much more care to take proper advice and make proper planning for the post war period. iraq is a very difficult country. strictly speaking it couldn't exist at all. it is an artificial creation. it was chiefly by winston churchill. he knew it was going to be a difficult country to administer and run and when i first went t iraq back in the early 1950s more than 50 years ago until the -- the really last good ruler

the iraqis have had. he said this is one of the most difficult countries in the world to run because it shouldn't really exist. it is an artificial creation and poses extraordinary problems. he explained all the difficulties and that is still true more than 50 years later. i wouldn't blame bush and blair too much for this. they should have taken more care over in their immediate plan. a lot of mistakes were made. as for the legitimacy and brightness of the war in the first place i am inclined to believe they were right. >> chris e-mails in you gave tremendous credit for the formation of the u. s. can you expand on the definition

of why? >> i wish you hadn't asked me because i don't know what the answer is. good fortune, if you look at america it is a wonderful country physically. it has wonderful minerals. on the hole a very good climate, has plenty of space and tremendous rivers, it has health and everything. right to listen to the bulletin and is stirring, it has dropped,

beautiful sunshine, america is a world in itself and it is a rich and handsome and world -- there was a further good fortune that ends -- wrote the constitution and put it into operation. a very able, sensible and wise men to do it. george washington, what a wise man he was and coming behind them, john adams and so forth. they were in remarkable group of men and they created a country,

worked that constitution and it has lasted 250 years, 1/4 of a millennium without any fundamental changes and it is the top nation in the world. >> barney in california? >> how do you think you reconcile your reference and everything, in honduras and eric dodd in haiti and howard dean brought out the underdog's light, how do we then manipulated once overcome this?

>> the caller is gone. i think -- i hate to rephrase this. >> christianity has not been tried and found to be one thing. there is some truth in that. they put him into practice. america is as close as any other nation, create a christian way

of life. this is something ordinary people can do something about. events are beyond their control and there is nothing they can do. a terrible earthquake in haiti, nothing we can do about that but whether a country is a christian country or not and whether it expresses christian practices and shows a christian way of life is something all the people can do something about. it is something every individual american citizen can do something about. we can all lead christian lives and set a christian example. we can all talk and behave in so far as our private lives and public lives are concerned in the christian way.

here is something where christianity is not incompatible with good behavior by a great nation. >> finally, mr. johnson, mark in harrisburg, pennsylvania, do you have any plans on writing an autobiography? >> yes. i am bringing out a book about all the famous people i have known in the last 60 years. , matt and learned from. i have 250 names. and a little book about my experience as a young man in boarding school at oxford university, in the army and in my first job in paris. describing these great experiences. if live that is what i will do and will be published in a year

or two. >> mr. johnson has written 50 books. the first was in 1957. his most recent, 2009, churchill. thank you, mr. johnson. >> thank you for having me. >> here's an update on the $787 billion economic stimulus program signed into law a year ago. $333 billion has been committed. $179 billion has been paid by the government. visit our web site to keep track of stimulus money. you can read reports and watch hearings, briefing that speeches at www. c-span.org/stimulus. a hearing on toyota's recent vehicle recall over malfunctioning gas pedals. witnesses include the president and ceo of toyota motors north america and u.s. transportation secretary lahood.

watch coverage on c-span3. next, the british iraq war inquiry commission with testimony by former prime minister tony blair. the panel is examining british involvement in the war and the circumstances which lead to the 2003 invasion. questions fus on the legality of the war, military preparedness. this session runs three and ours. >> good afternoon.

welcome. we have much to cover today. we hope to go about our business in an orderly way without being distracted by disruptions. in all our hearings, witness to respond must be respected. those here today, this morning and your cells this afternoon were selected through a free public ballot overseen by an independent arbiter. and i remind everyone of the behavior expected. welcome back, mr where. for the benefit of those not able to be in the room this morning, two things.

we recognize the witnesses giving a recollection of the events. and i have reminded each witness that he will be asked to transcribe evidence given to the effect that the evidence is truthful, fair and accurate. >> would like to pickup some points that follow on from where you were before lunch. just to finish off the diplomatic and political decisions you faced in the days before you had to make the decision, that we should start military action. there are only two points that want to ask about now. the first concerns the position of the french government. in your final speech on the eighteenth of march, you told

the commons, france said it would veto the second resolution whatever the circumstances. those on the security council opposed to us will not countenance any new resolution that authorizes force in the event of non compliance. had the french been on to us after the days after that before you made that statement, having been told through diplomatic channels that we were misinterpreting the words but misinterpreting the context of his statement of circumstances. in the view of the french government they had not been saying that france would vote no

against any resolution. he was referring to this resolution at this time. >> i spoke to president jacques chirac and this is absolutely up to that time, the french physician was very clear that he didn't veto any resolution to authorize force in the event of breached. the point with this. if we were to go back to the united nations and yet another resolution it had to be a resolution that says something stronger and the idea was to say because we had been true for people in 1, if we come back for another resolution, this has got to authorize action. >> you didn't feel there was any

possibility that if we pursue inspections for a longer period. at that stage the people would have been prepared to vote for an authorization for military action. we came in the security council. i wasn't trying to be in a position of what fell out and it was very clear to me, the french, germans and russians decided there was a straightforward position. i don't think it would have mattered how much time we had taken.

>> in any circumstances at any time? >> something absolutely dramatic to the inspectors. it might have made a difference to them. the fact that he was in breach of 1441, despite this being his final opportunity. my judgment--and i think this is pretty clear, there was by then political divide, fundamental nature. >> as we haven't gotten nine positive votes in the back the french -- is there any substance in the charge that by making so much of the french veto we were using it as an excuse to withdraw the resolution which wasn't going to succeed anyway and we could read the american timetable and going into action. >> i had many conversations with our leaders at the time and most of those were with president

august of chili. he was in a tough situation as we all were. and what he was saying was to -- if you can get to stage where you listen to french opposition it is easier for us to come with you. it is in the permanent five, a disagreement. >> you haven't reached a point in a week or so before the resolution was withdrawn where you had to give up your votes and your hopes that president bush could persuade the mexicans to come alongside and decide you have to plan the end game in which opposition was presented in the best way it could be.

>> it was worth having one last-ditch chance to bring people back together on the same page. what president bush had to do was agreed, what the french had to agree was you couldn't have another breach and no action. my idea was define the circumstances of the breach. that with the test we applied, get the americans to agree to the resolution, get the french to agree that you couldn't just go back to 41 again, you had to take it a stage further. i thought it might be possible to bring everyone back together again. i was also very conscious by that time as well of the need to bring the u. n. back into the situation and after the conflict, that was a factor in my mind as well. make sure you didn't end up with

a political disagreement becoming really ugly political situation between the major countries in the security council. >> a slightly wider point, at a really critical moment in your life. you reached the stage where you weren't going to get a second resolution. military action was imminent. you would be working intensively for months or a year to create a supportive environment. we discussed that already. public opinion in the u.k. was delighted. no major progress had been made on the middle east peace plan which i discussed earlier. we haven't got the second resolution and by this stage you were starting to hear warnings

from people like predicting cross on downing street. the post conflict preparations being made by the americans didn't look good. at this point you must have had some cause for thought. when you hadn't really satisfied the conditions he wanted to achieve, offered to go alone and offer a way out. >> the americans -- president bush shortly before the debate said it was too difficult for britain. we understand. i took the view very strongly than that it was right for us to be with america since we believed in this too and it is true that it was very divisive. but it was divisive in the sense

that there were two groups. there was a strong group in the international community, in parliament and the cabinet who also thought it was the right thing to do. the european union at the time, out of 25 members, japan, south korea, major allies lining up. >> clearly there was support but this was short of what you -- >> what i would hope to have had is a united nations situation in which everyone was on the same page and agreed. >> in kosovo, the russians -- much stronger support, the first gulf war was -- there was universal support and so on. this was the more difficult situation. >> it was a tough situation. in the end what influenced me

was my judgment ultimately was saddam hussein was going to remain a threat and this change in the perception of risk after september 11th it was important that we be prepared to act. our alliance with america was important. to put this very clearly, we beamed down a un partner that i thought would work. i had hoped -- >> you said this morning you were not terribly confident that it would work. >> i wasn't confident about them and personally good reasons. he hadn't changed his intent. i could see a situation in which you might be faced with this tough choice but i was doing everything i could to do it.

>> i don't remember his exact words but he saw a case for it. any partial -- they are not sending the troops in. what was your view of his advice? >> our own military was in favor to be wholehearted. >> they don't want to come back? >> their preferences and options? >> i thought you were meaning to say just because the troops were

down there? they want to be a whole hearted part of this. it would be kept out of the aftermath as well. the british forces performed magnificently during the invasion and afterward the. >> by going in with a large force we hope we will take the fighting of combat troops in the early stage in the hope that other people will take in the aftermath. if we had not sent the force in at this stage for this variety of reasons that we could then still have said in a respectable way, the sort of peace building, nation-building we performed experience in in the aftermath. it wasn't keeping us out of the

aftermath by not going in at this stage. >> we would have been part of the aftermath and had it turned out the reasons we didn't foresee, it was the different part of this. to get out of the aftermath as well as -- it would have -- this is the judgment. we decided to option 3. the consensus between political and military at the time. one of the things -- i advocated as prime minister. the armed forces as to whether they'd do it.

they are fantastic. it was a conversation we had beginning in july and building up to october and by the time you came to march it is true. i believe that would have been wrong and not indicated the strength of support i felt was right for us. >> let's change subject if i may. my colleagues have nothing further to raise on this point. this morning i registered that we would want to deal with all the legal issues. i hope it is easier for you and us. in the course of this week alone we have had ten hours of the

evidence on this from the attorney general from three senior civil service legal advisers who were involved. for that reason we don't propose to go through the issues point by point which will take another ten hours but we would like to focus on the questions that most directly concern you as prime minister. the committee has suggested the easiest way of protecting this would be if i tried to summarize first what we as a committee have heard and read on this subject and if you will forgive me, allow you to rest your voice, this will take me a few minutes but also save us some time. if you are content i will try to wrap up what we have absorbed. on this subject. ..

>> and they felt that not only because of the passage of time since resolutions 6, 7, 8 and 6, 8, 7 but also because in 199 thriand 1998 the security council had formed the view that there had been a serious violation of the ceasefire conditions and also the force that had been used then had been limited to ensuring iraqi compliance with the ceasefire conditions. and even in 1998 the argument had been controversial and not very widely supported. so the british argument was that

you needed a fresh determination of the security council. if we turn then to the precedent of kosovo, russia had proposed to override a security council resolution and our lawyers believed that this precedent did not apply to those circumstances in iraq because in kosovo we had had an alternative legal basis to rely on which was intervention to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. what it led to was consistent and i think united advice by the fco legal's advisors and also insofar as it was at this stage sought or proffered by the attorney general up to november 2002. that a fresh u.n. authorization

under chapter 7 would be required for the military action contemplated against iraq. contemplated at that stage as a contingency to be lawful. such an authorization in their view would provide the only grounds on which in these circumstances force could be used. and so the u.k. and the united nations obtained resolution 1441 passed unanimously. however, in the words of lord goldsmith, that resolution wasn't crystal clear. and i think you yourself this morning referred to the fact that there were arguments. it didn't resolve the argument was the way you put it. and the ambiguous wording of that resolution immediately gave rise to different positions by different security council members on whether or not it of

itself had provided authorization without a further determination by the security council for the use of force. so up until early february of 2003, the attorney general, again, as lord goldsmith told us in his evidence, was telling you that he remained of the view that resolution 1441 did not authorize the use of force without a further determination by the security council. that it was his position that a council discussion -- the word "discussion" was used in the resolution would not be sufficient and that a further decision by the council was required. and i think perhaps as i'm about halfway through the summary -- and i've just reached the point before the lord gives you his

formal advice it might be sensible if i paused at half time just to ask if up until now you think i've got it right in u.n. understanding? >> yes, i think that's a fair summary. >> if you're content, then i'll continue. and i hope to do as well with the second half but i'm not the lawyer. and you are. on the second of march -- 7th of march, lord goldsmith submitted his formal advice to you a document which is now in the public domain. and in that, he continued to argue that, quote, the safety legal course unquote would be a further resolution. but in contrast to his previous position, and for reasons which he explained to us in his evidence, he now argued that, quote, a reasonable case, unquote, could be made, quote,

that resolution 1441 is capable in principle of revising the authorization in 6, 7, 8 without a further resolution. >> uh-huh. >> but at the same time he coupled this with a warning that, quote, a reasonable case does not mean if the matter came before the court i would be confident that the court would agree with this view. to give evidence to us through sir michael wood and ms. elizabeth wilmshurst. they were continuing continuing to argue that the invasion could only be lawful if the security council determined that a further material breach had been committed by -- i emphasize the

word "further" because 1441 established that iraq was in breach but the argument was about firebreak and whether you had to have a determination of a further break. when it became clear that we were not likely to get a second resolution a further resolution, he was asked to give what he described as a yes or no decision. especially because clarity was required by the armed forces. cds had put believe to him and by other public servants. he had received also an intervention from a senior treasury lawyer. so having giving you that advice on the 7th of march, by the 13th of march he had crucially decided -- and this is from a minute recording, a discussion

between himself and his senior advisor who's also given evidence to us and which is also in the public record -- he had decided that, quote, on balance the better view was that the conditions for the operation of the revival argument were met in this case. i.e., that there was a lawful basis for the use of force without a further resolution going beyond resolution 1441. there's one further stage in the process and then i'll get to the end. this view now taken by the attorney general still required a determination that iraq was, quote, in further material breach of its obligations. the legal advisors in the fco

considered that only the u.n. security council could make that determination. but the attorney took the view that individual member states could make this determination. and he asked you to provide your assurance that you had so concluded, ie, you had concluded that iraq was in further material breach. and on the 15th of march, which is, what, five days before the a began, you officially gave the unequivocal view that iraq is in further material breach of its obligations. >> uh-huh. >> so it was on that basis that the attorney was able to give further action of military option to the civil service, to the cabinet, and to parliament. but it remained the case as sir michael wood made clear in his evidence that while the attorney general's constitutional authority was, of course,

accepted by the government civil service advisors on international law, he did by so sir michael wood, whole ms. wilmhurst decided to resign but they accepted his authority but they did not endorse the position in law which he had taken. and it remains to this day sir michael's position -- he said this in his witness statement that, quote, the use of force against iraq in march, 2003, was contrary to international law. now, my first question is, have i given a fair summary of the legal background? >> yes, i think that is a fair summary of the legal background. i would say, however, just one point, sir roderic, which is that what was so important to me about resolution 1441 was not simply that it declared saddam in breach, gave him a final

opportunity. but it said also in 4 that a failure to comply unconditionally and immediately and fully with the inspectors was itself a further material breach. this was extremely important for us to secure in that resolution and we did secure it. and what we kept out of 1441 was an attempt to ensure that we had to go back for another decision. >> i went through that in considerable detail as you probably saw. with the attorney general. just to make sure that we clearly understood the different positions. and the weight that it was being given to evidence received of private conversations of what was said in the public record. so if you will allow me not go over all of that ground again, if you're content with the way that we discussed it with the attorney general, and i would really move on to my next

question. which is that going back to the first half of 2002, which we discussed right at the beginning of today, the period when your strategy was evolving away from containment for the reasons you explained and towards the american position and, therefore, you were beginning to discuss the possibility or the contingency of having to use force, in that period of the first half of 2002, when you were having these discussions, did you seek legal advice from the attorney or indeed from anyone else? >> we got a paper -- it was an 8th of march paper which set out the legal position. and that set it out in the terms that you had just summarized. i was obviously -- not just very interested for obvious reasons but interested for this reason as well that we had taken action in 1998.

and we'd taken action on the basis of the revival of resolution 6, 7, 8. so it was very important to me because we'd already taken military action. indeed, as you rightly pointed out military taken out in 1993 as well. but we had that before us and one of the things that was most important in us going down the u.n. route was precisely the legal advice that we got. >> so you wanted that early stage to know the legal parameters. do you remember where that advice came from? was it from the foreign office of legal advisors or -- >> i don't. but i may be able to -- >> if i put it another way, i think from our discussion with the attorney general, it didn't come from him because if i'm not misremembering his evidence i don't think at that stage he had been consulted. >> it came from the foreign office actually. >> it came from the foreign office. could you say, given this is

pretty serious territory you're beginning to get on to, you didn't think it necessary at that stage to consult the attorney general. >> we were in my view a long way at that point from taking a decision. and had we come close to the point of taking a decision of course, we would have needed to have taken the formal advice of the attorney general as indeed we did. at that stage we had the advice of the foreign office. and actually the foreign office advice was pretty much in line with what peter goldsmith later advised me? >> he was 100% in line as we understand from both of them. so that point building the attorney general into the process of performing policy, having him at meetings like say the meeting at checkers you discussed wasn't something you felt a need to do. >> not at that stage because we were as i say at a very preliminary point. but what i took from the advice that we were given was that we needed a fresh resolution. >> yes.

>> and i do point out that because this is why at a later stage i was concerned what it was because we got a further resolution. >> if i could stick a little bit -- for a couple of minutes over the attorney general's role in this because his evidence is very fresh in our minds. i mean, in previous governments it was quite frequently the practice for attorneys general to attend cabinet and indeed in some -- all cabinets. you didn't have a war cabinet before the conflict began here. but you had groups of advisors who met. >> yes. >> ministers and advisors. attorney generals quite frequently in the past would have been there. lord goldsmith told us he had only attended cabinet when the conflict began to discuss iraq although as you said this morning the cabinet discussed

iraq over 20 times. and it was clear from his evidence, i think, that he was rarely included in the other discussions you were having around this subject. and that he had relatively few face-to-face meetings with you in 2002 and the early part of 2003, particularly, in 2002, to discuss this subject which i think raised the question in our minds as to why you hadn't thought it right to include him more closely? >> well, he was very closely involved in this in the sense that he himself and on his own initiative actually and after that time we obviously had a pretty close interaction on it. and at the end of july, 2002, wrote to me about his legal advice. and it's correct and i think this is accordance with tradition he didn't attend cabinet until he got to the point where we were actually going to take the decision. but back then, you know, we were a year off military action in

march, two you the. now, had we got close to the point of military action, of course, peter would have been very closely involved and actually began to be involved some -- i think it's right to say eight months before the military action began. >> but you actually got to the point right close to the point with him only having been to the cabinet twice. the second time being on the eve of conflict. >> well, the issue is not how many times he comes to the cabinet. the issue is whether he's giving his advice to the prime minister and to the ministers. and peter was. and just to say this about peter goldsmith as you will have seen from his evidence. peter is absolutely a lawyer's lawyer. he's someone of someone of extraordinary integrity. he's somebody who's actually a lawyer. is in the very top rank of the legal profession. and peter made it quite clear from a very early stage of this. if he felt the advice he would give it and he would give it whether people wanted it or they didn't want it. and they gave it.

>> and, of course, he told us he volunteered it after your meeting on the 23rd of july when you were about to go off to see president bush. and he volunteered written advice to you in a minute of the 30th of july. the text of which is not in the public domain. but he commented to us that this advice he felt had not been particularly welcomed. we wondered why it wasn't particularly welcomed to get advice? >> it -- it's not that it wasn't particularly welcomed. but i was dealing with what was already a difficult situation. and now i became aware we had to take a whole new dimension. and we had at an earlier stage of this. but once we got into discussions with the americans, i was well aware of the fact from -- really from march onwards that we -- if we wanted to be legally secure on this, we had to go down the u.n. route. and that was one major part of why we decided to do this.

>> so basically you got the point. you didn't need to be constantly reminded of it? >> no. but having said that, it actually was then very helpful for him to do this. because he focused our mind. quite rightly on the need to get the right resolution in 1441. >> so you got the wrong vibes from the reaction at number 10? >> well, i don't know. but, you know, i know peter very well. >> he made this remark. >> i think to be frank and to be fair to him, he was deciding before i go to president bush -- and i think he worried about statements that had been made by various ministers. >> later on he was, yes. >> he wanted to make it absolutely clear. >> yes. >> that it wasn't really -- i think his point was it's not merely going down the u.n. route. it's getting the right resolution that will be important. >> well, let's turn to that resolution. just after it was adopted,

adopted on the 8th of november, resolution 1441, and on the 11th of november, lord goldsmith talked to your chief of staff, jonathan powell -- he was a bit concerned that he was hearing secondhand views of his own opinions and he wanted, i think, to get that straight. and he made clear to jonathan powell that he was not optimistic that resolution 1441 would provide a sound legal basis for the use of force if iraq were found in breach at a future stage but without a second resolution. and he suggested that it was desirable for him to provide advice at that point. but he wasn't encouraged to do so. the response instead was that he should -- he could of a meeting sometime before christmas at downing street. and that meeting duly took place with some of your officials. and at that meeting he was again told that he wasn't being called

on to give advice at this stage. this stage being the stage in which he felt 1441 had created an unfair situation. but what he was invited to do was to put a paper to u.n. draft of his advice. and he handed that, i think, personally to you on the 14th of january. now, by then we're into a period in which the armed forces had actually been instructed to prepare for military action. and in which you were moving on the track towards an intended second security council resolution, though, that wasn't tabled until late february. i think about the 24th from memory. don't you think that it would have been useful as he obviously felt if he had the formal advice of the attorney general ahead of these now increasingly important

developments? >> no. i think what was important for him to do was to explain to us what his concerns were. and, look, all the way through this, as i know myself lawyers take different views of issues. and in issues such as this, they were bound to take very different views. and peter was quite rightly saying to us, these are my concerns. this is why i don't think 1441 in itself is enough. now, we had begun military preparations even before we got the second -- the first resolution. the 1441 resolution. we had to do otherwise weld have never been in a position to take military action. let me make it absolutely clear if peter in the end had said this isn't be justified unlawfully we would have been enable to take action. >> but if you'd known that he was going to say that, it would have been helpful to have known that as soon as possible. because it could have prevented you from deploying a large force in the region and having to bring it back. that's why i ask, wouldn't it

have been helpful to have known your options -- >> well, we did know our options, sir roderic. we didn't get formal in the sense legal advice at that point. but peter had made it clear what his view was. and then there was a whole iteration because the whole of the legal interpretation really revolved around a bit like a statutory construction point for lawyers. what was in the mind of the people who passed the resolution. and as you rightly said earlier, the resolution in one sense was unclear. and on the other hand, as to what people intended -- on the other hand, i certainly felt where it was absolutely clear you with a that there had to be immediate, full and unconditional compliance and any lack of that compliance was a further material breach. so in my view, there had to be at least a strong prima facie case if you could show material breach. that this justified the revival

arguments since otherwise you couldn't have justified in respect to 1998 -- >> this stage before the middle of february, he's not offering you options. nor is the foreign office legal advice. they are saying we have to have a further determination by the security council. later on it turned out he was able to find an alternative option. in planning the policy, my point is wouldn't it have been much easier for you to have known at this early stage that there was an alternative option that didn't involve a security council resolution? you might have then decided not to make the huge effort that you then make to get a second security council resolution because by making that effort and then not getting it, it could be argued that you had then actually weakened the argument that you subsequently -- or the position that you subsequently took on the revival argument.

wouldn't it have been helpful to have known that earlier? . >> well, we did know. the best thing is to get another resolution. so we were well aware that that was his advice. the issue is really this -- >> if he was saying it's the only thing to do at this stage. he didn't offer you the alternative until after he'd been to washington on the 11th of february? >> well, actually it was two things i think to be fair to him. and i think it's very important that this is seen in its proper context. it all revolved around the interpretation of 1441. and the question was, what did the security council mean? and we were obviously arguing very strongly that the security council had agreed that he was in breach. given him a final opportunity and any further breach was a material breach and he had to comply fully. >> but that has to be determined by the security council? >> and the issue as to whether -- some people wanted -- actually the security council

had to take a decision, that was excluded. we refused to allow that precisely because we did not want to be in a position where we were forced as a matter of law to have a decision. so that was why there was at least this powerful argument on the side of one resolution only. as there was against it. >> that's where you ended up in march. but until the 12th of february, you were not being told by the attorney or the foreign office legal advisors that you had the option of not getting a further decision out of the security council. they were telling you, both of them, that their reading of that resolution, which as you rightly say was something clear but british reading of that resolution unlike the american resolution was that the determination had to be made by the security council. >> yes. there was a disagreement between where our legal position was at this stage and the american position. i think it was our suggestion

actually that peter then went to talk to -- >> yes. it was then that his position then. >> it was not because of the americans. what happened was he had a discussion with jeremy -- >> after which he wrote to you saying his position hadn't changed. >> but he said it had been a very useful discussion -- >> and he told us there were three things that moved him. sir jeremy got him from and history provided by the foreign secretary and got him part of the way there and going to washington and talking to the americans got him more of a stage and that's the evolution. >> it was always a very, very difficult balance to judgment. the important thing was in the end that peter came to the view -- and i think as i say anybody who knows him would not have expressed this view unless he thought it and believed it. he came to the view that on balance the breach by saddam hussein of resolution 1441 was

sufficient provided it was a breach of the obligations set out in 4. >> what others wanted, that didn't come until the 13th of march when he had had a period of further reflection. what did you or others under your instruction, if any, have with lord goldsmith between the 7th of march when he received his formal advice and the 13th of march when he decided that his position had evolved further? >> i can't recall any specific discussions that i had. i don't know if others would have had them within the 14th of march. but essentially what happened was this, he gave legal advice.

he gave an opinion saying, look, there's this argument against it. there's an argument for it. i think a reasonable case can be made. and we had to have an a-definitive decision. -- we had to have a definitive decision. and yes, it was lawful to do this or not >> and a huge amount hung on that decision? >> of course, it did. a lot hung on that decision. and it was, therefore, extremely important that it was done by the attorney general. and done in a way which we were satisfied was correct and right. and that's what he did. if i could just point this out, too. if you go back and read resolution 1441, i think it's quite hard to argue as a matter of commonsense, leave aside there are issues to do with the precise interpretation of some of the provisions -- 1441, the whole spirit of it was, we'd been through 10 years of saddam hussein breaching u.n. resolutions.

we finally decide that he's going to be given one last chance. this is the moment when if he takes that chance, there's no conflict. and we resolve the matter. but if he doesn't take that chance and starts messing around again, as he started to do, then that's it. >> so it's quite hard to argue what? quite hard to argue -- >> yeah. the further resolution was clearly politically preferable for us if you can get everybody back on the same page again. it's clearly preferable. but if you actually examine the circumstances of 1441, the whole point about it -- and this is the argument i use with the americans successfully to get them to go down this route. and by the way, i should just point out at the end of october, 2002, i remember specifically a conversation with president bush in which i said, if he complies, that's it. this is important because people

sometimes say it was all kind of cast in stone -- >> number ten saying to the white house in january and february even into march that it was essential from the british perspective because of our reading of the law to have a second resolution. >> politically -- >> not preferable but essential. >> no, politically we were saying it was going to be very hard for us. indeed, it was -- >> was it legally necessary for us? >> what we said was legally it resolves that question beyond any dismute on the other hand for the reasons i've given peter in the end decided that actually a case could be made out for doing this without another resolution. and as i say did so for -- >> well, it must have been considerable relief to you on the 13th of march when he told you that he'd come to the better view that the revival argument worked. because at that point he had

given you, subject you making the determination, the clear legal grounds that you needed. >> yes, and the reason why he'd done that was obvious. which was that the blix reports indicated quite clearly that saddam had not taken that final opportunity. >> but he'd done it in disagreement with the international lawyers, all of them as we understand from sir michael wood, than in the government's employ? >> i seem to remember but i may be wrong so forgive me. but he also sought the advice we discussed that. and it didn't appear there were others in the -- >> other countries, of course, were having the same issues as well. >> yes. >> and having to decide this. and it wasn't -- it was irrelevant because the american lawyers had a different view.

>> it's not irrelevant. were there other countries which -- we heard what a dutch review has found on this. were there other countries in which there were people arguing in favor of the revival argument? >> all countries who took the military action believed they had a sound legal basis for doing so. all i'm pointing out actually when you analyze 1441 it's surprising as a conclusion to come to than sometimes is made out today some because the fact is 1441 was very deliberately constructed. it had, if you like, a certain sort of integrity as a resolution to it. it basically said, okay, one last chance. one last chance, saddam, to prove that you had a change of heart that you're going to cooperate and he didn't. >> we're not lawyers. we've simply listened to the views of lawyers. lord goldsmith, sir michael wood, ms. wilmshurst and looked

what they said on the balance of public opinion. lord goldsmith obviously was not in a position in which he had wide support within the international legal fraternity within the government. indeed, any, i think, in the u.k. when he made his judgment. but he is a lawyer of the highest eminence and they accepted his authority even if they didn't agree with it. so that was the final position. so just -- >> sorry, forgive me. all i'm trying to say when you go back and read 1441, it's pretty obvious that you can make a decent case for this. >> well, let me not pass judgment. i'm asking questions. and i don't have an opinion to state on it. i'd just like to ask one final question i think to wrap up this legal chapter. and this is really -- you were in the position ultimately where you had to give this determination. you had to go through with the action.

lord goldsmith was preparing with the assistance of christopher greenwood for the possibility of legal challenge. he'd known he'd taken a position that many others perhaps were arguing with or were going to argue with. and he had put something to you that was described as a reasonable case but nevertheless not one that he would have confidently put before a court. you then had to decide whether you were convinced that that this was a strong enough legal basis to take a very serious action of participating in a full scale invasion of another country. how convinced were you at this point of that strong -- that you had a strong legal case for doing what you did? >> i would put it in this way. what i needed to know from him was in the end was he going to say was this lawful. he had to come to a conclusion in the end. and i was a lawyer myself.

i wrote many, many opinions for clients. and he this end to be on the one hand and on the other hand but you come to a conclusion at the end. and he had to come to that conclusion. and he wasn't along for coming to that conclusion for very obvious reasons. if you read the words in 1441 it's pretty clear this was saddam's last chance. so that's what he had to do. he did it. as i say, anybody who knows peter knows he would not have done it unless he believed in it and thought that was the correct thing to do. and that was for us and for our armed forces, that was sufficient. >> and you weren't worried by him saying that he wouldn't expect to win in a court with this one necessarily? >> he simply said, you know, you're going to have -- there's a case either way. and there always was a case either way. that's why it would have been preferable politically and to have removed any doubt to have the second resolution.

but in the end we got to the point in the middle of march when frankly we had to decide we were going to either back away or we were going to go forward. and i decided for the reasons that i've given that we should go forward. >> it was the case either way but one he described as the safety legal course but that was no longer available. and the other he said was if the matter ever came before a court -- well, a reasonable case does not mean that if the matter ever came before a court, i would be confident that the court would agree with this view. but i think -- unless you have a further comment to make, i have finished, i think, with all the questions that i have on the legal case. i don't know if any of my colleagues have otherwise. i think we will move on to the next subject. >> i think that brings us to the question of preparations and planning, the decision having been taken.

so can i turn barrenes to start us off. >> you said the decision to contribute to full division was driven by your sense of what contribution should be to policy. did you weigh out that decision. the time that it would be required and such? >> yes, of course. i mean, part of the purpose of asking for papers that describe the different levels of military commitment that you might give is precisely in order to be able to learn what it is that you would be required to do. but in these situations, you know, you're very, very dependent rightly on the advice that you're given from the minister of defense and from the military. >> but a fundamental underlying assumption of the strategic decision view in which your government initiated in 1997 was that there would always be

sufficient warning time for any operation at medium or large scale to build up equipment, stores and ammunition. and in the case of a large scale operation, it said, such a substantial contribution to invading iraq, the necessary lead time will be six months. and this was necessary to allow for preparation reserves of medics and the capacity to build up stocks. now, on the basis of your government's planning assumptions, therefore, in order to prepare for the possibility, however, slim, a large scale military action in the spring of 2003, that six-month clock would have started ticking in autumn of out there. -- 2002. but david manning told us you sought to delay the decision as long as possible and we heard from lord boyce and a mr. hu and the restrictions on the military preparations in december 2002. i mean, were you aware what the

implications of that would be or anybody made you aware of the implications of the delay? >> absolutely. what was important was to be very clear that you could not do this unless the military were ready to do it. and yes, it's true as i think i explained this morning for a time we were worried about the visibility of all the planning. we were doing a certain amount of planning. but you then reach another level when you have to make it very visible and very clear. we didn't want to do that for fear of triggering an assumption that we were actually going to do military action irrespective of what was going to be happening at the united nations. however, i think it was at the end of october 2002, jeff said to me we got to get on with this now and we did. i know that mike boyce said to you in his evidence that he was confident that the u.k. military was ready by the time he took the full military action. >> but was that assurance given to you because they wanted to

give you a view of the can-do approach do you think? >> no. the one thing about the military in my experience is they tell you very bluntly quite rightly what their situation is. what they want, what they don't what and what they think about things. and mike was very, very clear that they had the readiness. i think there was something like 250 different urgent operational requirements that went into this. all of them, i think, kevin told you this was properly met. and incidentally someone came to me it's not safe to do this because of the lack of military preparation, i would have taken that very, very seriously indeed. but they didn't and they got on with it. and they did it magnificently as they always do. >> they did. but i think you would appreciate that they only had three -- it was in january, i think, that there was a formal approval

given. so it was only about, i think, a couple of months, you know, before the -- >> sorry, i thought jeff had come to me at the end of the october. there had been a lot of work there going on prior to this. >> that's true. but there was no visible preparedness. and things like the provision of essential kit, medical supplies, boots, body armor in a situation where there could be a threat of nuclear, biological and chemical, clothing ammunition. as it happened the kit did not arrive and that was the case. >> just let me emphasize to you on these issues to do with logistics and there's the expertise that the army has on this, i needed to know from them that they could do it and they would be ready. and that's what they assured me and they were. >> so what you're saying to me that nobody spelled out to you the implications of not doing --

being prepared in time given the time for the lead time for this operation was six months. >> no they were spelling out the implications and that's why jeffery came to me we've got to get this visible and get a move on with it. we had a meeting. i think with the chief of defense staff and others. and i just want to emphasize one thing. my attitude has always been i don't think i refused the request for money or equipment at any point in time that i was prime minister. and my view very, very strongly is when you're asking your armed forces to go into these situations, you put everything to one side other than making sure that they have the equipment they need and they have the finance there to back it up. they got it ready and they got it ready in time. >> the formal approval did not come until january anyway. and, in fact, we do know that that was the case even if it was late. >> well, i didn't know -- as i

say, there were issues to deal with logistics that they are far better to tell you about. all i know is that they regarded themselves as ready. and what is more, they performed as ready. they did an extraordinary job. >> but can i ask you another question because if the view was that you're going to through the united nations route and there was a military threat, why were you reluctant to have any visible preparation? >> well, we changed and we did have the visible preparation -- >> but that came later. see, that's my point. >> exactly. but there was always a concern, if you like, the middle part of 2002 because people were constantly saying -- they made up their minds. nothing is going to alter it. we're set on a military course and we were anxious to make sure people did not think there was an inevitably about this because one of the things i would emphasize to you is there really wasn't.

if the u.n. route had worked successfully, however, many doubts you could have on the past behavior of saddam, and it worked successfully, the whole thing would have been -- would not have happened. we would have taken the u.n. path and made it work. >> i now want to turn to the general aftermath planning. because on the 21st of january, 2003, you're giving evidence to the leason committee you said. you cannot engage in military conflict and ignore the aftermath. in other words, if we at this stage of military conflict we also have to get a very proper worked-up plan as to what happens afterwards. and how the international community supports that well and so on. now, several witnesses have told us that the planning for for the aftermath of the war was important if not more important than planning for resourcing of the war itself. >> uh-huh. >> now, what happened because, you know, this was inadequate.

and a lot of people have said it didn't quite work. >> well, first of all, i think we got to divide it into two sections here. actually we did an immense amount of prewar planning. i think mike boyce said to you again on his evidence they spent as much time on phase 4 as the other operations. we had the officials meeting obviously and we had the ad hoc meetings. we had cabinet meetings actually where we're discussing these issues. the real problem was that our focus was on the issues that in the end were not the issues that caused us the difficulty. it wasn't an absence of planning. it was that we planned for certain eventualities and when we went in there we managed to deal with those eventualities and we had to deal with different eventualities. and the prewar planning was

focused on the humanitarian number one i think probably more than anyone else. there's a house committee on march 6th, you have to do even more on the humanitarian side. all the focus was on that. >> but we also have evidence and i think these letters have been declassified that clare short was writing to you for a pretty long time on a level of development that differed from yours? >> if you looked at those letters they focused -- >> they do but what she was complaining about was the preparedness and the timing when it was done. attention wasn't being paid to that. >> exactly so. and that's why we tried to make sure we doubled our focus and when we went in there i would simply say on the humanitarian side -- and that was the main thing people were warning about. we didn't end up with a humanitarian disaster. in fact, we avoided and we avoided because the work the other agencies did.

the other things that she and others were worried about were the oil fields being set on fire and the use of chemical and biological weapons. so there was an immense amount of planning going on. but we planned with one assumption that turned out to be wrong. and then we also ended up with a fresh problem that i don't think so people foresaw. >> that raises another issue. how adequate was the planning? and had you ensured that planning covered all the full range of situations you may have faced post-conflict iraq? this is not the only issues you might deal with directly on military action but it's about security, economic, political challenges you might face because in a way the whole idea was to kind of reconstruct iraq. so had you planned adequately for these eventualities? >> yes. for what we thought we were going to encounter in iraq, i think we did plan adequately.

we actually had a perfectly sensible plan, which was to make sure that -- because from january on it was clear we were going to have responsibility in the south. that we would be able, for example, to put together very quickly a group of iraqis in basra that would be able to take over great responsibility. but one of the planning assumptions and i was just looking this up and i think andrew turnbull gave you evidence to this effect. the planning assumption that the nod, the foreign office i think differed that everybody made that there would be a functioning iraqi civil service. in other words, that you would remove the top level but you would have a functioning system underneath it. and i think one of the major lessons of this is to understand that where you have these types of states -- in the case of iraq a semi fascist state which operated among fear amongst the

population from a small number of people, that assumption is going to be wrong. you're going to be dealing with the situation where you probably have to rebuild the civil infrastructure of the country from nothing. and that's what we found. you will have heard from the evidence that the generals and others when they went into basra contrary to what we thought and the nod planning we had a completely broken system. >> you turned to lord turnbull contrary to the substantial landfalls to the coalition, i mean, were you aware that we would occupy the south and eastern iraq? and that we would assume the responsibilities as an occupying power under the geneva conventions. let me finish. what lord turnbull said, had we stuck with option two, we would have had warships and aircraft but we wouldn't have had the large number of people of security forces on the ground. and we would not have been the occupying power with everything

that flowed from it. now, that's what i meant about implications. >> it's correct that i think from about early january on that we knew we would be in a position where we were going to have to handle the situation in the south. that was actually, i think, preferable to us, frankly, from the situation originally contemplated in which you came in from the north. that was part of the commitment that we were able to make. and we then knew we would be joined be joined bit forces of other nations. >> were you aware of that when you took the decision -- >> well, i think from january onwards it was clear that we were going to be in a position where we were going to be in charge of basra. but the whole assumption was -- and you see this very clearly from the documents, is that you would come in -- obviously, the army would be the main people in charge. you would then bring your civilian people in behind that.

you would then as swiftly as possible turn it over to the iraqis and you would have an administration running very quickly. >> but i mean, that happened after, i think, after we got the security council resolution 1441. and -- >> yes, that was also a very important part of what we wanted to do. we wanted to bring the united nations back in. >> why did we unlike other members have a joint occupying power? >> because we were the key partner of the u.s. in this. we believed in it. we believed it was right for the reasons i'd given and we prepared to accept the responsibility of putting the country right. >> did we really weigh up all the liabilities the risks and resources required? >> absolutely. and one of the things that we made very clear -- i think i made this clear on a number of occasions that we could not walk away from our commitment to people in iraq. affidavits.

-- afterwards. i believe for all the reasons given that this was an important commitment to make. the whole reason why we then had quite a detailed and difficult discussion actually within the americans about the united nations then coming back in for the aftermath was precisely because we knew for ourselves and again i think peter goldsmith was covering this. 1441 effectively endorsed the coalition presence. >> but why is it that so many witnesses have said to us that the aftermath planning was deficient? >> well, i think, first of all, a lot of the criticisms have been directed at the american system. now, all i would say about that is -- i think like you, if you look at the rand report or the inspector general's report i think done in 2009 in america -- i think it lays out very clearly.

the problems in prewar planning, the problems in post-war execution. i think for ourselves, you know, if we knew then what we know now, i mean, we would, of course, do things very differently. on the other hand, for what we thought we were going to have, we had planned for it. and we actually met those eventualities. >> but you say criticism was directed at the americans but what had you agreed with president bush about the aftermath? >> what we agreed was -- i mean, this was the whole dispute really about the united nations. we were saying the united nations had come back back into the situation. >> but they were very reluctant to give the united nations a role. and that is something, i think, what we wanted. and there was a resistance from the americans. >> that's absolutely right but in the end the americans agreed what we called a vital or central role. >> and andrew turnbull said that he was -- >> well, i think if you actually look at what then happened with

the united nations in iraq, i think resolution 1441 is really a very important resolution. i don't know if you want to look at it now. i'm perfectly intent to do it. >> i have got it. >> yeah. rather than refer to it, let me make this rather simple point. i saw kofi annan, i think, on the -- i think it was around the 16th of april. in other words, shortly after the military action had begun. and i had a good and close relationship with kofi annan. he's someone i respected very much. it had been a very difficult position throughout the last few months. he cleared that iraq had to be independent in the coalition and he made clear he wasn't arguing for the lead role. >> what in the circumstances it's not surprising. >> absolutely. >> being a coalition-led invasion. and he did not want full responsibility of reconstruction. that is not surprising. >> correct. but that is why when people say

that as it were the u.n. should have been given the lead role, i'm simply pointing out the fact that he did not want that. what he did want was a vital role which is what we got the americans to agree to. and if you look at resolution 1441, it sets out the areas in which his special representative which he agreed to appoint would have influence and say. and absolutely that special representative was absolutely excellent. would have made an enormous difference to iraq and its future. but the terrorists killed him, assassinated him in august, 2003. >> i understand. but i want to go back to the point because my recollection is that as early as september, 2002, a number of a sensible questions were asked at parliament about the aftermath planning. and that we'd also been told you were given a rather optimistic view by the americans who thought it would be all right on the day.

>> well, the americans were making efforts actually. but i think as i say, if you read the inspector general's report and you read the rand report it's very clear. things could have been done differently. i think the american administration or the american system as it were has accepted that. >> but i understand you personally became involved in the aftermath about february, 2003, was it not too late? >> no. i was personally involved in what was going to happen before then. and as we came to the point of actually going in, it's true we had a meeting, i think, in february, 2003, and then subsequent meetings. but the absolutely central point since we're trying to see what are the lessons that we can learn. what we thought was going to be the problem didn't turn out to be the problem. >> that's true. but i think i go back to my earlier point. it is the adequacy of the planning on a whole range of things, economic, political, because in a way there was a danger.

there was information that iraq could have fractured given the insecurity of the kurds and the shias and sunnis. there's a whole range of eventualities of what was planned for that wasn't done? >> i would say we most certainly did plan for the problems in relation to the potential for a sunni/shia/kurd split. what we tried to do was to make sure that as soon as possible we brought the sunnis and the kurds and the shia together. and so what actually happened -- this happened in may -- i mean, just a few weeks after the invasion, they brought together -- i think it was called the iraq governing council or the interim governing council that had a membership of 25. i think there were 13 or -- i think it was 13 shia and 11 sunni and one -- >> but before that, i mean, a

decision was taken, for example, they were replaced by cpa and changes were made without any consultation with us? >> well, i think -- look, what actually happened was it became very clear that orha was not capable of doing this. >> i know that. but my point is in terms of working together, if there was a joint occupying power were we being the consulted and exerting the kind of influence we needed to? >> i think we were being consulted on the questions everyone thought would arise. but it's true -- i mean, tim cross and others were coming back and saying this system is not, you know -- it's not working the way it should. and we were then interacting very strongly with the americans. the only thing i say is that had we had even more focus on it, we would have still been focusing essentially on the humanitarian side with an assumption that we would inherit a functional civil service structure and it was

that assumption that proved to be wrong. and i think one of the reasons why we set up -- and i know you've had evidence about this what's called the stabilization unit in 2004 was precisely because we recognized in the future -- and i think this is what the american system now knows for sure if you're going to go into a situation like this you got to go in as nation-builders and you got to go in with a configuration of the political and the civilian and the military that is right for a failed state situation. now, it doesn't mean to say you don't do it. is, our assumption was that we would get the united nations to -- in the lead role. eventually. that didn't happen. did we have a plan b then? in a sense all i'm really wanting to get at is the ability to plan for eventualityies. >> we did plan for those eventualities in analysis of what they might be and worked them out. the trouble was, we didn't plan for two things. one was, as i say, the absence of this properly functioning

civil service infrastructure and the second thing, the single most important element of this whole business of what happened afterwards. people did not think that al qaeda and iran would play >> and we could have -- if what you'd ended up having was essentially an indigenous and violent or insurgency or the criminality and the looting and the so on, again, there were issues of the numbers of troops, the types of troops -- >> we'll come to that later, and i want to -- >> i just wanted to -- >> yes, do finish, please. >> just wanted to finish my thinking. all of those are very important questions. we could have handled the situation if that had been the problem. it was the introduction of the external elements of iran that really caused this mission very nearly to fail. fortunately in the end, it didn't. and the reason why that is important is that, in itself in

my view, is a huge lesson because those are the same forces that we're now facing, ask right round -- afghanistan right round the region. >> that's an area we're going to cover later. >> thank you. >> i think we're going to take a break in a moment. i just wanted to, hear these exchanges and reading a good deal and hearing a good deal of evidence, but there was in the terms of planning for the aftermath on the british side -- leave aside the americans, we've seen the hard lessons report -- there was a single set of assumptions which regrettably turned out to be very overoptimistic about what we would find. there appears to have been no real risk analysis looking at best case, middle case, worst case, and of the resource in planning horizon implications of that. what we did know, and i would not like to sound like donald rumsfeld, we knew we knew very little about the condition of things inside saddam's iraq.

we had no embassy, we had no direct means. john scarlett told us it was not an actual intelligence target. we could have amassed a good deal of knowledge in principle, but none of it sufficient. question, looking to the future the lesson to be drawn, is it ever safe to look at a single set of assumptions unless they can be tested quite rigorously against a worst-case background? >> well, i think that's a very good question. i think that, actually, we did because the m.o.d. did a massive amount of work on, there's a whole planning assumptions paper, as you know, and we did focus on this. we really tried to drill down on it. and one of the reasons why in early 2003 i was having quite difficult exchanges of correspondence with clare short particularly because, rightly, she was getting worried that -- and the humanitarian side was

not going to be adequately advanced. i think in the future your best to make this assumption, actually, that these types of failed states -- i don't know whether you describe iraq as a failed state or a kind of semi-fascist state, but whatever it was, it was a wholly dysfunctional system. if we're required to go into this type of situation again, you might as well assume the worst actually because it's going to be -- you are dealing with states that are keep -- deeply repressive, very secretive, power is controlled by a very small number of people, and it's always going to be tough. now, i think the real question in a way for us as a country and because i think whatever preparations you make, this was always going to be tough, always going to be tough, is are we prepared to engage in this?

are we actually prepared to be in there for the long term on nation building in these difficult situations fighting a completely different type of terrorist and insurgency threat? >> thank you. it may have turned out to be an expensive lesson, but one very necessary to learn. let's have a break for about quarter of an hour. can i just remind the audience that we will need to be back here. i suggest within ten minutes to be certain of getting in, back through the security if you go out. we shall need to start dead on time, and be you're not in here -- if you're not in here, i'm afraid that's it. thank you. >> well, let's resume this final part of the afternoon, and sir martin gilbert is here to ask questions. martin.

>> we've heard from a number of our military witnesses that the requirements for troops to be deployed for such a sustained period in iraq beyond the initial invasion stretched the military machine significantly. beyond the limits of what the military regarded as it sustainability. were you advised about the british military's ability to sustain a significant force in iraq? >> i was advised that we could sustain it, but it was going to be difficult, for sure. we obviously had the ongoing campaign in afghanistan, and we were bringing in troops from other countries. i think we had about 30 countries in the coalition. they brought in roughly, i don't know, 15-20,000 additional troops as well. i think we had the troops we needed in the south, but yet it was, it was all the way through it was going to be, it was going to be difficult.

>> were you concerned at any point that we had actually overcommitted ourselves? >> i was very concerned we didn't, and obviously the interaction between myself and the military was to make sure that we didn't. >> in his evidence to us, general wall described the impact of british forces in iraq in the summer of 2003. one, he clearly accepted this was necessary in order to provide for the long-term rule of troops to sustain our troops in the southeast. he did make clear that this constrained his ability to contain the emerging violence in iraq. what assumptions were made about the role of british troops with regard to iraq once saddam had been removed? what, what did you see and plan for their task to be? >> well, i think the idea, obviously, was that we would not require the same number of troops for, for the conflict as

we would many the aftermath. there was, i think, a time in the middle of 2003 when we were asked for more troops and gave more troops. and, and our issue really in the south was less to do with number of troops because, in fact, there was relatively low level violence in the south compared with the rest of the country. our concern was how we managed to get the reconstruction going in the south in circumstances where fairly early on there were groups whose purpose was deliberately to stop that reconstruction. >> given the constraints, what did you see as the balance of the troops on the one hand in seeking out m. n.d. which at one point had to be a -- [inaudible] but also our british civilians who were there in

reconstruction? >> these were very much decisions of the commanders on the ground, but i think they were conscious at a very early stage of this and that they were trying both to make sure that they dealt with any lingering resistance, but also that they provided security for the local people. i've gone back over this many times because i think it is very important, actually, this period straight after the, straight after the invasion because in a sense what happened was that we very quickly toppled the saddam regime. but then what we found, as i say, was the situation was different from the one we expected. between i would say march 2003 and early 2004 during the period of time that sir hillary ben was there, we had the situation more or less under control. we agreed, i think, a special claim on the reserve the end of march 2003, and what really

happened was that another assumption that had been made which was that iran would basically not be provocative, it might have it interests but it wasn't going to be provocative, that assumption also started to change, and what happened was as sadr became more powerful and, obviously, to an extent backed by iran, that entered a new dimension into this. as 2004 went on and came into 2005, this iranian issue became much larger. >> you mentioned it was the military who were, of course, advising in terms of the priorities. but what was your input at this time? what were you, as it were, suggesting and proposing to them? >> well, i think we were getting

feedback as quickly as we could on how we could change the situation round. we were trying to get the united nations, obviously, back in with a vital or central role. i went out then to iraq at the end of may 2003. i met jerry bremer there, and after that i had meetings both internally commissioning work and then had a very frank discussion with america as to what was happening up in baghdad. and at that point i think it's fair to say the issue really was, i think john sawers described this to you as the baghdad first policy. that in the end unless you could secure baghdad, you know, you were always going to have difficulties. but i would say, it's interesting this, when i was getting frequent reports back and i think as hillary told you, actually, i was always very clear with our people out there. if you're got a real problem, pick up the phone as necessary and you start to get messed

around with bureaucracy, come to me directly. and i think when i saw him at the end of february 2004 when he left, he thought it was challenging, but, you know, there was some progress being made, and we had to make sure the progress carried on. >> if i could go back to the military funding issue and perhaps look at its wider aspect. we've heard from several military witnesses how effectively urgent the operational requirements for the military were addressed, but we've also heard and geoff houston touched on this last week, because of the way the process works in it years two and three of a funding cycle, the continued use of uors over a sustained period led to core m.o.d. requirements being diverted to the uors. was this something that you were aware of, something that you became involved in? >> i don't think this was something i was personally involved in, no. i was more involved at the level, if you like, and say for

example in september 2003 they asked for additional forces, and i was keen to get them going. i don't think i really, i don't think the issues to do with urgent operational requirement ares really came to me. >> or the fact that the uors were diverting away from the -- >> i think if anybody had come to me and said, look, there's an issue and a problem here, and we were having ongoing discussions about the budget and so forth within the government, if someone would have come to me and said i think this is a real problem, we've got to deal with it, i would have been straight in there trying to sort it out, but i wasn't aware of that particular issue coming across my desk. >> right. >> we've also heard from sir chakrabarti as well as others that they felt that funding was not being devised adequately. for example, the rehabilitation in iraq, the efid requirements

really required more significant resources. is this something that came to you? >> yes, it did. one of the reasons why we agreed a supplementary provision by the treasury, i think of 127 million pounds if i rightly -- around about that -- at the end of march was precisely because we were aware we had to ramp up pretty quickly. now, there was an additional problem which was getting the allocation, the americans had made a huge allocations for and the cpa, the provisional authority up in baghdad, and we were trying to get that money transferred back down, and i even got involved at one point, i think there was a -- i seem to remember there was a siemens power plant, and i got involved in trying to sort out the money being delivered for. but my basic view, i think we spent i think we're-4 -- 2003-4 was the key country, i think we spent over 260 million pounds.

i mean, it was a big commitment we were giving. much of that was humanitarian, but there was also money there for reconstruction. and had people come to me, again, and said, look, we need to make an even greater commitment, i would have done so. but i think to be fair during that period of time as people were then assessing a quite different situation what became clear in time was not a lack of resource, but a lack of security. >> well, that brings me to my final question, really, and you touched, i think, just before the break in part on your answer, and that is the question of anticipating some of these problems in advance. i mean, from what we've heard from people on the ground, the military and also across the dfid and the whole question of the deteriorating security situation, are these not things which august, september, october 2002 should have been addressed? after all, iraq was not an unknown quantity. >> absolutely correct.

and we focused very much on what we would find and how we would deal with it. and also there was, of course, i mean, i raised this issue myself several times, you know, how would the sunni/shia relationship work out, and that was going to be a major part of the problem. you had basically three groups, you had the kurds up in the north, you had the sunni, and down in the south it was predominantly shia. for that very reason, there was another reason why i wanted the u.n. closely involved because i thought they had a better chance at bringing those groups together. it was also a reason why very early on we put a lot of effort into getting a sense amongst the different iraqi groups that they could come together pause one of the thing -- because one of the things that happened in iraq was, obviously, the sunni, who were 20% of the population, had effectively ruled the country. and so the majority shia population had been excluded. so this was going to be a huge thing now. they were, for the first time, going to come into positions of power.

but we put a lot of focus and work on that. and by and large, you know, one of the extraordinary things about this from 2003 onwards is this political process, despite everything, continued. and actually it was in 2006 as the result of what was a absolutely wicked and deliberate act of bombing the sue mar ramosing, that was then what started to tip this into a shia/sunni issue. fortunately, in the end we got back out of it again. but in 2004, you know, down in the south there are all sorts of issues, but we were managing them. >> was it, then, a weakness in the pre-march discussions that somehow voices weren't raised and experts and knowledge wasn't put on the table that there could be this massive deteriorationsome. >> well, there was very much discussion of the shia/sunni issue, and we were very well aware of that. what there wasn't, and this,

again, is of vital importance and this certainly is a lesson in any situation similar to this, people did not believe that you would have al-qaeda coming in from outside, and people did not believe that you would end up in a situation where iran and once, as it were, the threat of saddam was removed from them would then try to deliberately destabilize the country, but that's what they did. and there were some very important lessons in. that because what is important to also understand throughout this process, the iraqi people as a people were not in favor of the violence. they were not in favor of sectarianism. as a people they supported and have supported throughout the political process, indeed today in iraq, you've now got for the elections that are coming up groups who are overtly nonsectarian standing for elections which is a huge thing for the whole of the middle east and a great thing, incidentally.

so i think what we, i think showed you have to be aware of is if you're dealing with a country where you're likely to get this perversion of the proper faith of islam, you are going to have to prepare for that very carefully. your troop configuration's got to be prepared for it, and you've got to be prepared for quite a fight over it. >> you mentioned i think twice in your speeches before the war your meeting with iraqis and how affected you were by that. but they weren't giving this sort of warning sign? >> no, they weren't. i mean, look, it was a statement of the obvious. britain, in a sense, as iraqis remember back in the 1920s were intimately involved with all this, so everybody understood the history of how iraq had come about, and obviously you had the kurds, you had the sunni, you had the shia.

but the consensus view was you had to watch for this sunni/shia violence, that was precisely why you had to construct an inclusive political process. right from the outset we tried to deal with that. and i did something else, and i think jack straw mentioned this to you in his evidence, i sent jack to talk with the eye irani. a very big lesson in this for me was that we tried very hard with the iranians, tried very hard to reach out, in a sense make an agreement with them to give them a strong indication that it wasn't the american forces were not there having done iraq to move through to iran or any of the rest of it. and one of the most disappointing but also, i think, most telling aspects of this is that the iranians, whatever they said from the beginning, were a major destabilizing factor in this situation and quite deliberately.

>> thank you. >> i think, roderic. >> can i just briefly follow through on that point and then raise another. hindsight's a wonderful thing, and with all the wisdom of hindsight i suppose it seems pretty obvious now that al-qaeda would seek to exploit conflict in iraq and that, indeed, the iranians would as well. as you just said, they had a destabilizing effect, and they must have enjoyed putting pressure on us and the americans as we were trying to put them under pressure to deal with their nuclear program. now, that's all hindsight. but if there'd been a really rigorous risk assessment made before we went in, would it really not have shown that these risks existed? you've repeatedly referred to how these external factors destabilized and how this wasn't something that had been

predicted. could it, could it and should it have been predicted. >> well, that is a very, very good question. let me try and answer it. we did ask for an assessment on iran particularly. indeed, you will see through the intelligence assessments in 2002 i am constantly going back and forth, you know, is iran -- i think i asked this again in february 2003, what's the attitude of iran going to be? the, the conventional wisdom, if you like, at the time was that you might get elements of the revolutionary guard playing about, but basically the evidence was that iran would more or less have a watching brief to see how it would play out, but it had no interest in destabilizing. >> despite the fact that iraq had fought a long war with it, they weren't exactly best pals. >> no, exactly, but that was the

point. because as it were saddam had been their enemy in the iran/iraq war and heaven knows, as i say, there were a million casualties from that war. it was because of that situation precisely we thought they'd be more amenable to get rid of saddam. i'd actually spoken myself to the president of iran prior to september 11th when we were trying to get the new resolution on sanctions. i actually had a telephone conversation with president khatami at the time and basically had gone out of my way to say, look, let's have a new relationship and so on. in respect to iran, that was the advice. but we did go into this in some detail. in respect to al-qaeda, and i think in retrospect this, this, this was difficult, at the time -- and, you know, we know so much more about these groups and how they operate now -- but at the time the single thing

people were most determined to prove was in a sense they were two separate problems. because the americans had raised this question of a link between saddam and al-qaeda, and really our system in britain was determined to say, no, come on, keep the two things separate. we're not saying saddam had anything to do with september 11th, and that was very much how al-qaeda was seen. now, i think -- and this is a very interesting point because it absolutely goes to the 2010 point that i raised earlier. my view is that if we'd left saddam there and he'd carried on as we said with the intent to develop these weapons and the know-how and the concealment program and the sanctions had gone, i have little doubt myself -- but it's a judgment and other people may take a different judgment -- that today we would be facing a situation where iraq was with competing with iran, competing both on nuclear weapons capability and competing more important perhaps than anything else, competing as well as the nuclear issue in

respect of support of terrorist groups. >> i think it would be very useful if we have time at the end to come back to this 2010 point because you've raised something that other witnesses have not so far raised with this, at least not in that way. but you have raised a sort of binary question whereas there are alternative scenarios under which saddam might very well still be in a box. i mean, it wasn't a question whether he got right out of it, but i just wanted to put one other question about the proposed conflict period to you which is simply this. you said you went to baghdad in may and you met bremer and. of course, when bremer arrived, he arrived setting up the cpa which everybody had described as a shambles. with two extremely important edicts that he promulgated in

his first week which had been prepackaged in washington on debaathification and on the disbandment of the iraqi armed forces. now, it wasn't, as other witnesses have told us, that we disagreed with the principle of these edicts, it was really the extent, they were far too sweeping, and that damage had to be undone. so a lot of damage, it turned out, was done by these edicts, again, based on what we've heard in evidence. my question is this simply, had we been consulted before this happened by washington on these very important decisions, we were their co-occupying power, and if they hadn't consulted us, should they have done? >> well, certainly the moment, i mean, i don't know whether there had been any official contact on this at all. i know i hadn't had the discussion with the white house on it. i would, however, say the moment we were aware of this john sawers was, of course, in baghdad then, and he was on to

the case. i, i think one of the things, you know, that, obviously, you will do is to look at this debaathification and disbanding of the army and assess how, how big a factor it was. >> we have done to an extent already. >> yeah. i would say it's quite interesting. i mean, i am not sure in my own mind about this even now. i think in respect to debaathification, and i think john sawers said this to you, it was going to be really difficult to prevent a certain level of debaathification. the question is should it have gone down to -- >> yes. that's exactly the point, yeah. >> now, all i will say about that was the pressure -- because this is, it's almost impossible for us, i think, to understand how oppressed and repressed the population of iraq felt. suddenly they had this freedom. they detested these baathist

people. i mean, i remember meeting groups of iraqis before the invasion, and they would tell you of the torture chambers and all the rest. now, i know we have the same problem with the nazi party in germany after the war. it's a very, very difficult situation, this, and even now -- because i got on to president bush pretty much straight away on this -- >> but it was kind of too late by then. effectively, we hadn't been consulted. soobs we heard about it -- as soon as we heard about it, you and john sauers got on to it. >> john was there at the time of decision. >> my question was -- >> i think it was a decision of such moment that it would have been sensible if there'd been a major discussion about it. >> so the answer is yes. >> but i would say to you to be fair to the americans, the moment that it happened we raised these issues with them, and actually they reacted to it. >> but they didn't withdraw their decisions. >> well, they amended the

decisions very substantially. and this is where i think, again, i would consult quite carefully with the people who took these decisions on the american side because i've spoken to people subsequent to this. i think probably it's true it would have been better not to have done the debaathification and disbanding of the army in that way, but all i say to you is that's a very live debate amongst the people that were there at the time. >> thank you. >> and just to say this, as a result of the conversation i had with george bush literally days after this, they were scaling back, they scaled back further, and in respect to the army they were always intending to rerecruit, and then they corrected this pension problem that they had with the army, you know, pretty quickly. so all i would say is i think it's something that you need to take a range of views