This debate formed part of an event at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Gerard Baker (GB): And right from the start of her parliamentary term, soon after she was elected in 1983, she gave an indication of how she planned to go on when she sponsored a bill to take - which took directly - took on directly the tabloid newspapers in Britain. Those of you who are lucky enough never to have come across the British tabloids may not know, but it has long been a tradition, unfortunately many of them, that they publish pictures of semi-naked women - or at least one of them does - usually on page three. It's sort of a famous British institution. And Ms. Short tried, unsuccessfully, to pass a law that would actually require newspapers to stop doing that. As you can imagine, that didn't endear her to many of the newspaper proprietors or their editors, but I am glad to say the Financial Times has never had a page-three girl. (Laughter.) So it didn't cause us any difficulty at all.

When Labour - Ms. Short rose very quickly to become a front bench spokesman when Labour was in opposition in the early 1990s. And when the Labour government, under Prime Minister Tony Blair was elected in 1997, she was appointed secretary of state for international development. And I think again it's fair to say that she won considerable plaudits all around for her impassioned defense of the poor around the world, for the fight against disease, for the fight against inequality as well. And she was able to win in rather difficult times significant increases in her budget from the Labour government, when other parts of the government were being squeezed.

But I think it's probably fair to say that she - and she probably wouldn't disagree with this, I hope, but she never seemed quite at home in the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair. There was a famous occasion before the 1997 election when she referred to - I think it was "dark figures" inside - around Tony Blair who were pushing -

Clare Short (CS): Spin doctors -

GB: - pushing the labor party in the wrong direction.

CS: - proved to be prescient. (Laughter.)

GB: And that, as I say, didn't endear her to some members of the Labour government, but nonetheless she served in the Labour government for six years after that. Of course early this year the tensions between - the tensions within the Labour Party over the prospective war against Iraq became very, very pressing. And Ms. Short, first of all, in a rather rare demonstration of independence from a Cabinet minister, indicated that she would resign if there was a war against Iraq. And then in the build-up to the war actually went so far as to call the prime minister "reckless." Now, in the British parliamentary system, again for those of you who don't know the British political system, for a Cabinet minister to call the prime minister reckless is an example of lèse majesté that I think probably hasn't been matched in the last 20 or 30 years. She called him reckless, and the speculation was that she was essentially challenging him to fire her. Well, he didn't rise to the challenge. She stayed on through the war, but then finally resigned in May of this year, after the war over the resolution, the U.N. resolution that was put at the end of the war by the British and American governments, about which she said she hadn't been consulted, and which she felt the country had been misled about the reasons for going to war, and she resigned. And in her resignation speech was again pretty brutal, I think it's fair to say, about the prime minister, saying that he was obsessed with his legacy, that he was - that he was - and repeating many of her caustic remarks about the prime minister and some of his followers over the last few years.

So we have here someone who has very much been inside - both inside and outside the Labour government, a strong critic - a supporter of many of the things that the prime minister has done, but a strong critic of the Iraq war. And she - so we are very privileged to have her tonight, and it will be interesting - very interesting to know how she sees the situation certainly since she resigned, where the political situation in Britain has been a lot more difficult, I think it's fair to say, for Tony Blair, and I'd be very interested to know what she thinks. And I should also say that she's not - she's always famous for some colorful bon mot. My favorite one that I read about you, Ms. Short, which I just read the other day, was that it said - you apparently said to someone - most - to some reporter, "Most of us women like men, you know, it's just that we find them a constant disappointment." (Laughter.)

CS: The women are laughing. (Laughter.)

GB: So, we are going to find out whether or not the prime minister has been proven to be one of those men that Ms. Short has found disappointing.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Can I start by asking you - the prime minister, as I say, since you left, particularly since you left the government, has been under enormous political pressure. We've had the tragic death of Dr. David Kelly, the Ministry of Defense scientist, and then the Hutton Inquiry that has just concluded its deliberations and will report in December. He, the prime minister, clearly is going to have to answer to some criticism. But it's been quite striking in the last week we had the Labour Party conference - a lot of speculation at that conference that the prime minister would be in real trouble, that the party was turning against him; that the country, according to opinion polls, are turning against him. But I wonder - but he came through that conference relatively unscathed, it seemed. He got a standing ovation, one of the longest he's ever had. So can I start by asking you whether or not you think that perhaps on the Hutton issue, on the Iraq issue, whether or not perhaps now the prime minister and this government is actually out of the woods?

CS: No, there was a lot of manipulation at the party conference - you know, clappers arranged around the hall, and the party not wanting to sort of humiliate him in public. The party is losing membership, very troubled, and the country doesn't trust him anymore, in very significant ways, which is in all the polling. We had a bi-election, a safe Labour seat that we lost. The comments of people - I mean, 62 percent of people in Britain think he lied to the country over Iraq and the route to war. And most of the people in Britain didn't say action over Iraq should not be taken. It was, do it properly, do it through the U.N. So the bulk of public opinion didn't say leave Iraq. And that destroyed trust in him more broadly. So he's very weakened, but the opposition is very weak. So we don't know whether we are going to go. Next election, the maximum time in June 2006, which is a long time, two big issues coming to parliament where there's going to be major rebellions in the Labour Party with both the opposition parties voting against. So he's been badly weakened and wounded, and his country doesn't like him anymore.

GB: I mean, do you think you played a part in wounding him to some extent?

CS: Maybe. I haven't done it deliberately for that purpose, but I think he did engage in a series of half-truths, deceptions, exaggerations, to get Britain to war. I think he made promises to President Bush, and made different promises to the people of Britain. And then was squeezed by that into some deceits. And I think it's such a serious [INAUDIBLE] to take your country to war that that behavior is not allowed. And I personally think it's better for him, the government and the country if he departed voluntarily, get his dignity back, because once people go people remember all the good things they did. He's saying he won't do that, but I think there's at least a 50/50 chance that he won't be the prime minister of Britain when we get to the next election.

GB: What will that mean for relations with the U.S.? Because I mean there's one thing we can be in no doubt, is that the prime minister has been a very staunch ally of President Bush. If he is toppled, or he goes voluntarily, sometime in the next year, as you say is a possibility, a strong possibility perhaps, where is that going to leave President Bush? Where is it going to leave relations between America's most important, most faithful ally and the United States and this administration?

CS: Well, I mean, where President Bush is is a matter for the American people. Where Prime Minister Blair is is a matter for the British people and his party. I mean, my own view is that Britain was not a good friend of America, that mistakes have been made that leave America in a very, very difficult position in Iraq, in danger of it getting worse. A good friend would have said, "Your neo-cons are right that we shouldn't just leave Iraq" - sanctions for 12 years, inflicting enormous suffering, Saddam Hussein defying the U.N. - anyone who suggests any link between September the 11th and Iraq - of course that's dishonest and we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't deceive our people and be dishonest. But we're with you on dealing with it, not leaving it. We'll be with you if you do it right, but if you don't, you're on your own. And I think that's what a good friend would have done, and we could have kept the world together, and we could have prepared for afterwards, and not been - so I don't think - I don't think always if you're feeling hurt and angry and traumatized, as reasonably this country was after September the 11th, your best friend normally just goes along with your trauma. Your best friend might help you to deal with your problems. And I think he let himself and our country down, and I think let the relationship down by encouraging mistakes.

GB: But you supported the war. I mean, you stayed in the Cabinet during the war. You didn't leave the Cabinet until after the war. So you presumably were willing to go along with the policy which was - which essentially led to war.

CS: I believed that it was right to attend to Iraq. I supported the threat of military action to enforce the authority of the U.N. I didn't believe it was necessary to rush to war by that date. Blix should have been given more time. I think the way certainly our country was misled, and most people in the world about the French position suggesting that the French had said no second resolution of anytime, which they didn't. They said, Give Blix more time, but if he fails - that's what Chirac said, you know, in public on March the 10th.

So I thought the route to war was badly handled, and we should have taken longer and been more careful. But after a - and I made the reckless thing, you know intending to leave or be sacked or whatever. But the prime minister badly wanted me to say, for obvious reasons, there was a big rebellion in the party. But we had a detailed discussion about the reconstruction of Iraq, and I thought I had clear commitments that we would do it wisely. And I think that requires the U.N. to have the lead role in helping the Iraqi people assemble a government that then has interim sovereignty and so on. I think that's been a massive error. And then when that wasn't done - I thought even if we go to war a bit foolishly, if we help the people of Iraq reconstruct their country well, good would have come out of bad, and it still would have been okay. But then the mess on that meant it was intolerable, and I left.

GB: Do you think Iraq is a better place today without Saddam Hussein?

CS: Saddam Hussein is an evil, brutal dictator, and it's good that he's not there anymore. The chaos, looting, disorder and violence in Iraq is very bad, and I think the negligence of failure to prepare for afterwards is a disgrace. And I mean certainly the British military were very clear that it would only be a matter of weeks, that the Iraqi armed forces were weak. And I think it's shameful and unforgivable that there wasn't better preparation.

And I saw what happened with [INAUDIBLE] and the State Department and the Pentagon, and this is - it's disgraceful. I mean, it's damaging to Iraq. The U.S. troops - they are losing lots of lives, and lots of people with serious injuries. Britain less because they're south of the country , it isn't so bad. And of course the disorder means that less oil is flowing than in Saddam Hussein's day, and the kind of reconstruction and investment in the oil industry isn't happening, and therefore the costs are greater. And this is a disaster.

GB: But -

CS: And I fear growing national resistance that will make it even worse, and then the U.S. will be bogged down, the people of Iraq will suffer, the Middle East will be more dangerous. And this is very bad.

GB: Well let me get it clear. So you don't necessarily think the war was unjustified. And, again, as I say, you were in the Cabinet when the decision was made to go to war. But you do - but you - so it was not that the war - it was inconceivable that the war could actually result in good things in Iraq or the Middle East, but it was the planning. It was the way in which they went about war, particularly the way in which they went about the planning for the after-war -

CS: I think it was right to say Saddam Hussein has got to comply with the U.N. resolutions on his WMD. And this absolutely brutal dictatorship and the world should combine to try and help the people of Iraq to bring him down. I mean, I think we should have [INAUDIBLE] indictment and so on in the way we got Milosevic. I thought it was right to be willing to contemplate the use of force to bring that about. I think we should have exhausted all our means, and we didn't. That's what divided the international community.

But I was by no means ruling out the use of force, but we should have done it properly, and we shouldn't have had so much deception to the people of our countries about why we were doing it. So that's where I am on the war issue. As you understand, it's not no war, but it wasn't done right. And I think the failure to prepare for afterwards is criminal negligence, along with the consequences for particularly this country in terms of loss of life and cost and the suffering of the people of Iraq. It's unforgivable. And it's de-stabilized the Middle East. Al Qaeda were not in Iraq before - they almost certainly are now. Whose interest is that in?

GB: How much - you've said, you know, the prime minister may not survive - how important is it do you think, or how important is the issue of weapons of mass destruction? It was obviously the prime minister's principal justification for going to war, and they haven't found weapons of mass destruction. Although I must say that David Kay's report last week, though it found no evidence of actual weapons, was pretty clear about programs that were place and that were planned to be reconstituted, but they haven't found weapons -

CS: Come on. I'm sorry, that is just not acceptable to shift the program. No one was saying programs. They were saying weapons. I read also all the British intelligence, about the roar on the assessments. I never had any doubt that Saddam Hussein had wanted to have nuclear - which is really the only real weapon of mass destruction. I mean, chemical and biological are very undesirable, but they are not, as one of the expert witnesses to the Hutton Inquiry spelled out - and that the weapons inspection system had dismantled the nuclear, and that the security services in Britain have said that it would have taken five years to nuclear - and they were - there was a determination to have scientists working on chemical and biological, and there probably wasn't much. We had a careful assessment of the likely use in the case of war, which obviously our Defense Department needed to know for British soldiers' interests - what I wanted to know for Iraqi civilians' interests.

So it needed dealing with, but there was no imminent threat or there wasn't a real and present danger, whatever the phrase Tony Blair used. Therefore the hurrying to war and breaking, dividing the international community and failing to prepare for afterwards was all unnecessary.

GB: Do you think the prime minister lied to the British people about the threat from Iraq?

CS: Well, I went - I am very thoroughly brought up Catholic, which displeases some of the teachings of my church - pretty obvious which ones. But when I went to school -

GB: Not the ones on Iraq. The pope was pretty well on one side of that issue.

CS: That's right. We have this, you know, what is a lie? A lie is the intent to deceive. That is what I was taught as a child. If a lie is the intent to deceive, then the British people were deceived, and I think the American people were deceived about the link with al Qaeda. And this is not a good way to conduct foreign policy or to keep trust between governments and people.

GB: What can be done now, do you think? It seems - I was in Europe last week, and feelings are still pretty bitter actually in continental Europe. I mean, there's been a degree of rapprochement, but it's not - it's got a long way to go. What - there is a strong sense I think in this administration here, which I think to some extent is justified, that the Europeans have a more or less a vested interest in seeing Iraq fail, seeing the U.S. and Britain essentially get a bloody nose in Iraq. That's the very powerful impression that comes across to me. And inevitably that creates a feeling over here that these are not allies. You know, we've heard a lot of comment in the American press recently that France can no longer be really considered an ally of the United States.

CS: Very serious.

GB: How do we get beyond seen the main thing we've seen today, probably now the U.S. is going to drop this new resolution at the U.N. to get U.N. authorization for what's going on there. How do you think we get beyond this really still quite, quite serious problem?

CS: I think your depiction of attitudes in Europe is false, and is seen through a false U.S. lens. Most people in Europe, or most people in Britain, think the world is massively more dangerous, and there's a fantastic danger of Iraq going on, getting more and more unstable, and more and more people joining the nationalist resistance, which is very bad for Iraq, bad for the Middle East, bad for the U.S., bad for the U.K., bad for everybody. So whatever views we all had about the route to war, to get a way forward to make sense for Iraq is in everybody's self-interests, including France, including Germany. And I think that's a predominant view in those countries.

But what would it take to get everyone to come in with a big international effort to avoid that potential disaster is the U.S. being willing to go for a Security Council resolution that hands over to the U.N. the authority to - from the Coalition Provisional Authority, to create an interim government and the process of building a constitution and getting to elections, because occupying powers have no right to convey sovereignty. And the sort of process that's going on in Afghanistan, if we'd move to that in Iraq, I think the international community would come together and there would be an exit strategy for the U.S.

And - I mean, I think Britain hasn't had it so hard because the Shi'a people were so oppressed under Saddam Hussein, whatever their irritations, democracy will advance their position, so if they get any sense that there's not coming elections and if they start to resist - and their religious leaders are very powerful, their leadership - then we'll get even more disorder out of that country.

So, it's in the U.S. interest to work with the U.N. to get the kind of resolution that will bring the international unity. And if you talk to the Pakistanis and the Indians, both of whom have been requested to supply troops, only with a stronger U.N. role can they contemplate it. And getting Turkey in is - could destabilize things more - which are the only troops on offer - Japan's offering something, but I think it might take quite a bit of time for them to arrive.

So, I think the U.S. - it isn't sort of how can we get the world together - the U.S. needs a different strategy. Otherwise they could be in more and more and more trouble - and Britain with it, but we're a much smaller scale. And I don't agree that Europe is sulking. I think the kind of strategy - I mean, even [U.N. Secretary General] Kofi Annan has spoken publicly, critically, and this is very unlike Kofi - the feeling amongst senior U.N. staff after the killing of - the bomb, and Sergio [de Mello, former U.N. special envoy to Iraq, killed in the August 19, 2003, bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad] losing his life, is very strong. So, the reason - there's a strategy on which the world would unite, and it's in America's interest. The administration doesn't yet seem to be capable of going there.

GB: You mentioned Europe. Where is Britain now with Europe? I mean - Tony Blair wanted to put Britain at the heart of Europe when he became Prime Minister. He wanted, everybody thought, actually to lead Europe. And I think, you know, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that's true, but obviously relations are not very good. There's powerful opposition in Britain to the euro. There's no possibility, I think anybody thinks, of Britain joining the euro any time soon. And there is even mounting opposition, popular opposition, it seems, to this constitutional convention, which we've just - the inter-government - governmental conference process has just started. I mean, Britain seems to be increased - if anything, actually more detached from Europe under Tony Blair than it was a few years ago.

CS: Well, over Iraq, certainly. I mean, the people of Britain were European on Iraq and the prime minister was somewhere else.

GB: Washington, I think.

CS: Yes. I think the euro - there's first the emotion of it, and there's the economics of it. And the European Central Bank is so deflationary, and continental Europe being in such deflated state, that there's just no responsible government could recommend to the British people and we committed to a referendum to do it to go for the euro yet. So, Tony did want to do this in this parliament, but the economics say no, and I think everybody knows that now. Though he did have a feeling that he could [INAUDIBLE] Britain there come what may, but I think he accepts that also. And he's weakened, I mean, there's no question, but I think he couldn't have done it even if he hadn't been weakened.

Where Europe is, is we're just widening and taking in all the new members. It's a fantastically important thing that's helped to get the Balkans out of the morass of their ethnic hatreds that have been the history of that part of Europe for a very long time, and that's a great thing. But it's going to strain Europe's institutions to their roots, and its institutions are very bureaucratic and inefficient.

Plus, the proposals for a new constitution, but they're contentious, and there's always a contest between small powers and big powers, and Britain has less influence than we used to have because of Iraq. And it's not just the British people. I mean, the Swedes have just voted against the euro in a referendum and a poll of the Swedish political class saying vote for - the view is that the new constitution might get not through in Denmark.

The people of Europe are going off Europe, not that we want to break it up, but there's too much bureaucracy, too much regulation of our sausages, our chocolates, our ice cream. They all need [INAUDIBLE] down. We need to get into - So, I think the people in Britain are in the same mood as people across Europe and the project. It will hang together, but it's going to be under strain as it widens.

GB: One final question before I throw it open to the floor. I think you were at Cancun, were you, for the -

CS: I was there.

GB: - yes, the WTO [Fifth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference]. Obviously, it's a terrible setback for world trade. Is there any - I mean, is there any prospect now of getting - there just seems to be such a wide gulf between the industrialized world, between members of the industrialized world, and then between the industrialized world and the developing world. How important is it that we get some kind - some - get this process back on track, and how can we do it?

CS: I think this is enormously important for the world economy to, you know, to yet another set of international institutions that aren't working. And the rules of trade are monstrously unjust. You know, every European cow gets a subsidy of 2.2 euros a day, and half of humanity lives on less than that. We have - you do too, in different ways we do it - tariff escalations and so on that mean we dump food, subsidize food into poor countries where agriculture is their comparative advantage. And we have tariffs that prevent them from processing their agriculture products, and therefore what they can earn from their exports and their capacity to grow their economies. It's just grossly unjust.

And it's in everyone's interest to grow the world's economy, including in the interest of the - of the richer countries. In the world economy, the recovery is quite frail, so I think it would - and the talks broke, not on the main issue, which is agricultural subsidies, so I think Cancun was incompetently managed, and I think it's in the EU and U.S. interest that we get a successful trade round. To do that, the developing countries have to be given more trading opportunities. It's in our interest that the poorer countries grow their economies, even in selfish economic self-interest, there's this bigger market out there for everybody to prosper. And the Cancun failure is a serious setback, and if it isn't rescued, and if we lose the WTO and only have bilateral and regional trade negotiations, the world economy will falter some more and it will damage all of us.

GB: Well, I'm going to throw it out, but just before we start, I just would ask you when - please try and keep your questions as brief as possible so as many members as possible can speak. Could you also, when - please stand when you have a question and wait for the microphone to come, and then state your name and affiliation. And although we're on the record, I know there are some members of the press here, I'm going to have to ask you to be very patient, and we will ask Council members to ask their questions. If we have any time at the end, we may be able to ask the press, but this is essentially for Council members.

Yes sir. Please. Could you just stand until we get a - thank you.

Q: My name is [INAUDIBLE]. Ms. Short, I would like to ask you to engage in a little psychoanalysis of Tony Blair, but - but you might want to prefer answering by saying you're not a psychologist. I will ask you to talk about political motivations. Was - is and was Tony Blair primarily motivated in the way he approached the war by sincere political conviction, a conviction politician, which would be counter to many appraisals we had of Tony Blair over the years? Was he motivated by a sense of the special relationship with the United States was paramount over any other concern of foreign policy? Or was he a poodle, or persuaded to be a poodle by President Bush, or was there something else? But fundamentally, what placed Tony Blair in the position that he found himself?

CS: One thing that happened, that's very unusual in Britain, is that our normal decision-making processes broke down. And we have quite strong coordinating mechanisms. There's a cabinet subcommittee, defense and overseas policy committee, that on any big foreign policy issue, all the appropriate secretaries of state or departments, the security services, the heads of the armed forces would be represented. So normally, on an issue like Iraq, there would have been that assessment - you know, there was plenty of time to get ready, of the options, and a properly thought-through strategy. None of that happened. The power was pulled into a very small entourage and the prime minister. And I think that led to lack of attention to detail in the thinking further through of the policy. It's one of the things - one of the explanations for what - the incompetence of what happened and the failure to prepare for afterwards. That was second term, hubris, powerful prime minister, breakdown of our constitutional structures.

Secondly, I think that - well, there's a book by Peter Stothard called "Thirty Days." ["Thirty Days: Tony Blair and the Test of History."] I recommend - it's just a quick read - but he produces his six points that Tony Blair wrote himself that he kept coming back to, and he includes post-September the 11th, the U.S. was going to act on Iraq, it would be better for them to go through the U.N., but if they didn't then they were likely to go anyway. It would be disastrous if they went alone. For some reason he decided that the U.S. acting alone was disastrous for the world, and I think this was his biggest error. He committed very early to go with President Bush, and that meant he lost his leverage. I think that was just he made an error. And everyone in Britain wanted also this special relationship to say the British are asking our prime minister to stay close to America and do this thing right. And we thought that's what he was doing, that's why people are so angry with him, because they now think he just committed - had no leverage, there was no need to rush, humiliate [former U.N. weapons inspector Hans] Blix, you know, divide the international community.

I think the psychology is second-term prime minister looking for legacy. Pretty big and impressive role of Afghanistan. Try to be close to America but not have a kind immediate lash out. Get the international community together. I think it was one of Tony Blair's high points. I think he thought he was doing that again.

These are my explanations. So, there's hubris in it. There's poor policy making because it a very personalized small group and normal British decision-making procedures breaking down. And there's a conviction that America acting alone is a disaster for the world, but I don't fully understand that was his conviction.

I think my fourth, and it's probably my most insulting insight - and I do know Tony quite well and we've worked together on a lot of things - I mean, it isn't, you know, I'm not in the position I'm in out of some personal antagonism - it's that he was really hurt by the reputation of being a focus group politician, of always seeing which way the wind - and he wanted to be more of a conviction politician. So, in a sense that was a spin of all spins, you know, a [INAUDIBLE] conviction.

GB: Sir, could you just wait for the microphone?

Q: Steven Kramer, National Defense University. If Tony Blair resigned and Gordon Brown became prime minister, would there be significant shifts in policy, for example, towards the United States, towards Europe, and domestic policy?

CS: My view is that, you know, even if Tony Blair's twin was to replace Tony Blair, it would be a good thing if he went, if you know what I mean, because it gives you - no, it gives you the opportunity to say "We can refresh. These things were good; this needs modifying." So, change has got value when something has gone rather wrong, whatever - whoever is going to be the successor.

But you're right, the mostly likely successor is Gordon Brown. The two of them have been enormously close. They came into the House of Commons same year as me. They shared an office. Gordon was the senior partner. And they've worked together a lot, and they've got a jealousy that often [INAUDIBLE] in politics - or in other spheres indeed, that's contemporary to both hoping to be the bishop, or the professor, or whatever it might be.

GB: No. I'm sure it's confined to politics.

CS: Gordon is fundamentally very pro-American in his outlook, which you probably know. He's more deeply rooted in the Labour Party - though he was probably more responsible for new Labour than Tony actually, and his commitments on social justice and so on, and development internationally - the danger as well as the moral outrage at the levels of poverty in the world is probably deeper emotionally, but it would be that sort of modification and nuance, not the sort of total departure.

GB: Do you really think there's a real possibility the prime minister will resign? Because I've spoken, you know, spoken to some of his people, and I saw his performance last week at (Bonmouth ?). This doesn't look like a man who is preparing to stand down.

CS: No, absolutely, he - but, I mean, unless you're going, you say you're not going, right. And then Alistair Campbell [Tony Blair's former communications chief, resigend after the Dr. Kelly affair borke out] denied that he was going, and denied when the story came out from [INAUDIBLE] saying he was going, and then a few months later said he was going. And I am - I am simply saying the - there's going to be massive revolts in parliament. The public has gone off him. We have big elections in a year for all our metropolitan areas plus the European elections. As we are now, Labour would lose all the metropolitan areas. He's never had adversity. It's not inevitable that he goes, but he could say, "Well, I was always planning to go, but I couldn't go when everyone was saying I was wrong on Iraq." And if we could get Iraq looking better, he'd - he'd be more - he could go with more dignity.

So, I'm not saying he's definitely going, but the pressures will still be there, and the next few years are going to be very tough for him. And, you know, he's always had adulation, and he likes it.

GB: Very unusual in a politician. Yes ma'am.

Q: Xenia Dormandy from the State Department. I'm wondering if you could tell us what you think about the fact that we're sending all these resources, both the U.S. and the U.K. in Iraq - what does this mean for Afghanistan and other places around the world, Liberia, et cetera, et cetera?

CS: Well, in Afghanistan, serious errors have been made. It's just lack of attention. The issue after the war was to get stability across the country. The ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] was very successful in Kabul in stabilizing Kabul and, you know, all the girls got back to school, and all sorts of things were done quite quickly. But we have to have the clarity and courage then to send the peacekeeping force across the big cities of Afghanistan and get the warlords to give up on all their private armies and all their growing of narcotics, which is what has been going on in Afghanistan for the last 20 years or so, and therefore there's a criminality, warlordism tied to narcotics, that maybe it won't be a safe and stable country. So, creating a new national army and then getting - the ISAF expanded a process Afghanistan is part of creating a new nation of institutions that work. And there's been just a delay on that, that's just been foolish, and lack of attention to what needed to happen to create a stable country in a very unstable region. And now we've got some resurgence in the Taliban that I'm sure can be dealt with, but we must get on with it. Now we're seeing NATO is talking about taking ISAF beyond Kabul, and that should have been done ages ago. And we had all these things under cost. If you do it right, the country's economy could start rebuilding itself and it doesn't need as much money from outside. If you do it wrong, then you've got hunger and dependency, then it needs more aid money to prop it up.

Similarly with Iraq, if we can get Iraq moving forward and start using its own oil resources, and, I mean, it's exporting less oil than it was during Saddam Hussein's day, and the pipeline keeps being broken, and it's easy to do that. And, of course, you need investment in - because all the old - the old technology in its oil sector is very old. It needs investment, and no one's going to invest in such an unstable country. So, Iraq can pay for its own reconstruction if we can get the politics right.

So, it isn't just that we've got a limited pot of money and we either do Afghanistan or we do Iraq, or we do Africa. If we were wiser with what we're doing, we could move forward, Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. I think we're just making errors.

GB: Sir.

Q: Spurgeon Keeny, National Academy of Sciences. I was struck in the last two days of reports in the U.S. press that Robin Cook [former foreign secretary] had stated that Tony Blair had told him in advance of the action against Iraq that he knew that they had no weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to the U.K. or the United States. My question is, as a member - another member of the cabinet, were you aware that - are you surprised to hear this, or were you aware that Blair was playing both sides of the street on this? And how do you react to that revelation, if it is in fact correct?

CS: No, I'm not surprised. I read all the intelligence for the last months, and I was clear that Saddam Hussein's regime had a desire to have nuclear weapons and a chemical and biological program, that the nuclear program had been dismantled, and the view of our security services was it would take five years as well as access to materials to have a nuclear program. And I believed - and believe that we were - but obviously less of this than we all thought - scientists working on chemical and biological. And then we had an element of doubt about how weaponized that was. I remember the first Gulf War, there were Scuds to Israel but nothing in them, but obviously that would be the fear.

Now, we already know that clear evidence has come out in the course of the Hutton Inquiry [over Dr. Kelly's suicide] that the 45-minute - he could deploy in 45 minutes. One, there was only one source for that and it was linked to Iraqi exiles, and I think here you know about the reliability of some of those claims. Two, it was completely misleading, and people in Britain were misled and talked about it could reach Cyprus because we've got British troops in Cyprus. It was only battlefield. And John Scarlett, who is the chair of the joint intelligence committee, said on oath, in his evidence to the Hutton inquiry, one source only, and it was only potentially battlefield.

And I had asked for an assessment from our defense intelligence as the likely use of chemical and biological weapons in the course of a war, because my duty is to Iraqi civilians and obviously they had to make an assessment because of their duty to British troops, and we had a detailed assessment which was there was a risk, it wasn't inevitable, we didn't know how much was potentially weaponized. And the assessment of our - of MI-6 [British intelligence agency] was, after Blix went back, the likelihood of use was lower because of more hiding. So, I knew all that. And I knew that the dossier had been exaggerated. And the British people know now because of the evidence to the Hutton inquiry. And Tony Blair's - final thing - chief of staff, an e-mail from him that's now being revealed in the evidence that's come out to the Hutton inquiry saying, here's Jonathan Powell [Tony Blair's Chief of Staff], there is no imminent threat. We must not let the prime minister ever speak as though there is because he would be misleading. And he used this phrase "clear and present danger."

So, actually, Robin [Cook] said it more graphically, or at least clearer, something that know to be the case. And we have - this is where you get to, you know, is a lie the intent to deceive or spelling out, you know the actual word something that is graphically false. And Robin argued that even if Tony didn't mean to imply that the weapons could go beyond Iraq, if everyone misunderstood him, he had a duty to correct that impression and tell the House of Commons and failed to do so.

But I think it's not a shock to Britons because of this other evidence we've had. This is partly why people have lost faith so much.

GB: Yes, at the back, let's go - yes, over there in the back with the beard, if I may please, right in the back.

Q: Me?

GB: No, the gentleman next to you. Sorry. Yeah, you'll have to share a question, if you'd like. But that's okay. Yeah, go ahead.

Q: I raised my hand, but I don't have a beard, so -

GB: Oh, I'm sorry - I saw a hand and thought it was connected to the face with the beard. (Laughter.) Obviously not. I'm sorry.

Q: Yes. Sorry. The bearded lady. (Laughter.) Fiona Hill from the Brookings Institution. Ms. Short, I was very - a very compelling presentation on the - certainly some of the intrigue and difficulties within the government. But there's also been a great deal of speculation outside the British government on the reasons for the progress into Iraq. I mean, obviously, from my accent you can tell I have an interest in Britain, if [INAUDIBLE]. And I've been reading a lot in the British press, and I just came back from London, and I've been watching a lot of commentary. I've been astounded repeatedly at the kind of speculation on the reasons that the United States went into war. One of your former colleagues, Michael Meecher, wrote a very long op-ed that was all a conspiracy theory so that the United States could control Iraqi oil. It was a pretty bizarre piece. But I frequently hear on many of the most reputable British talk shows that it was all about Israel. Of course, it was all the neocon plot. You yourself alluded to this.

Why do you think there has been such a propensity for conspiracy theories in Britain about the - basically the rationale for the United States in entering the war in Iraq. Certainly, for such a close relationship, there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding, certainly between the British public and the United States in general. I'm just wondering whether this is a symptom of the mistrust that you were talking about, about the spin from the British government, but I wonder if you could speculate on this?

CS: I think people are so shocked by the incompetence and the unnecessary divisions of the international community and the deceptions and the half-truths that they go to conspiracy theories. I think that's - I think people are like, you know - people are like - I think the Michael Meecher article is ludicrous, and nobody is there. Well,there might be a few people who say that seriously, but no one else in politics, deal old Michael, he's a 60-year-old adolescent who gets excited and he went on the Internet - and I don't think that's a serious thing.

GB: That was the theory that the U.S. was basically behind September the 11th -

CS: Or allowed September the 11th to happen in order to be able to - you know, rubbish. But that's not mainstream in any way.

I think - I think also it is the view in Europe that the U.S. view on the Middle East, Israel, Palestine, is quite unlike the view of the rest of the world. The rest of us think - this includes most Jews in Britain - that it's disastrous, the constant conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, that it's massively in the interests of both people to get the two-state solution, that it's a tragedy for everyone concerned, the present situation, and that the U.S. failure to use its influence with Israel means this crisis and all this suffering, and mess, and bitterness goes on. And that the - that U.S. policy in the Middle East includes always allowing Israel to be strong. Israel's got nuclear weapons. Israel's got WMD. If you could do a settlement, Israel, Palestinian, two states, with everyone cooperating, you could have an agreement to take all WMD out of the Middle East, then you really could get the conditions where an advance to democracy and stability in that region.

So, I think these things can be linked first as conspiracy theories, but it's quite reasonable to say the U.S. views the Middle East and the role of Israel is very, very unlike the whole of European view. So, I think the basic resort to conspiracy theory is the deceit and the incompetence makes people look elsewhere for an explanation.

GB: Thank you for that. Yes sir.

Q: Henry Precht, former subscriber to the Financial Times. (Laughter.)

GB: Could we move on to another - (Laughter.)

Q: I wonder if you could reflect on your day job and tell us something about your impressions of the quality of the British aid program and its associate diplomatic and intelligence services?

CS: Of course, it's not my day job anymore, but it was my day job for six years. I think that the levels of poverty and inequality in the world are the biggest moral issue we face, and, of course, a potential instability, conflict, displaced people, failed states, and in failed states you get criminalization, and you get nasty people hiding themselves there, and that the failure to attend to all of this is a gross failure in this era of the post Cold War world, we should get on with it more seriously.

And I also think that the old ideas of aid as sort of drops of charity in a sea of poverty is the wrong conception. We should see it as an investment fund in helping countries to create competent modern states with [INAUDIBLE] to manage their economy and grow it, and have a basic health care system, and a basic education system, and therefore to lift themselves up.

We shifted, and I shifted the U.K. efforts in that way, increased the program but focused it much more on helping rebuild states and their institutions and so on, and help shape debt relief to operate in that kind of way. And I think this is an urgent imperative and we must go on with it.

I think it's - and to get the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund], U.N. development institutions, and all the bilaterals working much more together to create competent, modern states, and to deal - a lot of the conflicts in Africa or Nepal or places like that are partly kind of criminalized failed state conflicts, and the remedy to them is almost a police-keeping, dealing with the rebels, creating a competent, modern army, et cetera.

We moved a long way down that road. The British people were proud of it. The department of international development was increasingly respected. We worked more and more closely with the U.K. military, who has see both the threat, and our military took a lot of pride in what we did in Sierra Leone, and the way we were backing up the authority of the U.N., but helping a country that had been through gross suffering rebuild itself and become safer. There is a U.K. strategic interest, but it also creates a lot of pride in our soldiers to help with something like that.

So, all of that moved well. I think it's an urgent imperative for a safe and stable world that we drive forward on that and don't see development as just marginal charity [INAUDIBLE] after you've done mainstream foreign policy.

I think it's difficult - this is my final point, in this very bitterly divided world, and dangerous Middle East, to, with credibility say, we've got this absolute international unity on driving forward the reduction of poverty and the creation of stable states. People are less believing that we can cooperate in that way, but we need to get back to it. I mean, Africa was nearly a failed continent. I mean, it's closer to us than you. It's right - it's 20 miles from Europe. Twenty percent of its people are living conditions of conflict, with disease, poverty, environmental degradation, displaced people, that cause misery, but also create great dangers. There are drug dealers, diamond smugglers, all sorts of - Osama Bin Laden was in Sudan before he went to Afghanistan.

We have a selfish interest as well as a moral duty to attend to all of this. And there are a lot we can do if we just deploy the resources we've got more intelligently.

GB: Okay. We have about three minutes. So, I'm afraid - really, let's try and get two very quick questions in if we could. Yes, sir, in the back, you've had your hand up for a while.

Q: Hi. I'm Bill Casebeer, a professor of philosophy at the U.S. Air Force Academy. I have a quick question about where Tony Blair falls in kind of the spectrum of deception. At one end of the spectrum of moral objectionability, there's the type of deception where you place an interpretation upon facts, you later discover that the facts don't actually support your interpretation as reasonably as you might have thought, and you fail to correct that. On the other hand, at the other end of the spectrum, there's something along the lines of where you manufacture a deception out of whole cloth. Where do you think Prime Minister Blair falls on that? And if you were to give a 30-second barrister's brief, what kind of evidence would you provide for that story you would tell about where he falls? And also, it's probably not as though he woke up one day and said "Ah, today, I'm going to deceive the British public." Could you tell us some kind of psychological story about why he wound up on the spectrum wherever you think he is?

GB: I should - I think we should always just allow the possibility that Tony Blair might have decided to go to war because he believed it was the right thing to do, rather than because he was intent on deceiving people. (Scattered applause.) But anyway, yes -

CS: Yes, but you see, we have law in the U.K. He's not allowed to just go to war to displace Saddam Hussein. You can argue about whether the law should change, and therefore - I mean, the attorney general's legal opinion, which came very late but was published, said the authority to go to war flows through the U.N. resolutions and the need to get rid of WMD, and you could argue that you needed to get rid of the regime in order to achieve that. So, if you're right, and those few people who clap are right, then he was planning to not just be a little bit of economical with the truth, but to breach U.K. law, which I don't think you would clap that.

I think that Tony is a very powerful presentational politician. I think they're getting this - I think what's happened in California, we can see a pattern, as it were, here. No, a voracious media and a determination to present your case well, and a thinking in terms of what would go over well, and the broad intention to operate with the U.S. and deal with Iraq - that's completely honorable - and then a determination here to go and dates were fixed, and he'd given his word. He'd committed the U.K. to of course obey law and international law, and to work with others, and work with Europe, and to get a second resolution. I think he had given commitments here and at home that were somewhat incompatible. And then you get this sort of putting the best case, finding the best sound bite, presenting the intelligence in a way that supports that, a bit of ambiguity, when does that become the intention to deceive - I think that's how it happens.

GB: But he - can I just say, he did take the issue to the British parliament. The first time I can recall Britain has gone to war after a vote in the House of Commons. It was most unusual. He actually went to talk to the House of Commons -

CS: It's not the first time, but you know, we have different constitutional arrangements. You see, it's a royal prerogative, the right to go to way. So, it comes through the executive, having come through the crown, because of the way in which our parliament evolved. But the commitment in the House of Commons was given by Jack Straw [British Foreign Secretary] and others. You're right, we haven't done it on many other occasions, and we don't - you know, our history on this is different. But, it got to the point where the commitment had been given, and it was unbreakable, I'm sure -

GB: And it was highly questionable whether or not he'd win. Well, he knew he'd win the vote because the conservatives backed him.

CS: No, it was questionable. It was another lie. I mean, afterwards, he knew - afterwards, he and others said they were going to resign if they lost the vote. The conservatives were voting with the government. It was absolutely un-loseable that vote. It was absolutely un-loseable.

GB: In political terms, though, if he'd lost the majority of the Labour Party, -

CS: No. I'm sorry.

GB: - it would be very hard for him to [INAUDIBLE].

CS: The scale of the rebellion was humiliating and embarrassing. It was un-loseable, and he said in interviews afterwards he was planning to resign if he lost. Now, why do people say things like that? They get strained and heroic and they say things that aren't quite true. I mean, you tell me. I think it's fairly serious, but that's what happened.

GB: Okay. One final, very quick question, if we may, because we're right out of time.

Q: Steve Kiser from the Rand Corporation. Today you suggested that Prime Minister Blair has committed sins either of omission or of commission. And I was wondering if you would comment on whether you think President Bush committed similar sins - (laughter) - and if so, who is the bigger sinner? (Laughter.)

CS: Well, it's not for me. I mean, he - President Bush is your president. Tony Blair is - is the prime minister of my country. I understand that 70 percent of the American people believed that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were highly linked to September 11th. If anyone gave that [AUDIO BREAK] is phenomenally important for the integrity of democracy, and keeping some kind of order, and integrity in public institutions, and [INAUDIBLE] people to trust their governments when their governments are giving difficult messages. So - but I think the situation here was different. I think the trauma of September 11th was very big. I think it creates a different psychology and a different sense of the need to act. And that's where I think Britain followed America in that we were in a different psychology, and if we had been calmer and cooler and a better friend and said, "Yes, let's go with Iraq but let's do it honestly and well," it would have been better for everybody.

I think - I think Tony Blair - let me say this - in those half-truths, exaggerations, and being economical with the actuality, he got himself into a trap and then he had to go there. He didn't say "I am going to sit here and tell a lie to my people." It's just he got squeezed between his different promises. And I think we all persuade ourselves in those situations and we've all been in them in our personal lives, except George Washington - (laughter) - but we persuade ourselves that we're on the [INAUDIBLE]. That we are doing it for the right reasons, and then it becomes a question of political accountability.

And I think I said this earlier, and let me say it again, even given all that, and even getting to war in the way we did, and the unwisdom of it, if we - if we had done the reconstruction of Iraq right, it would have been a historical, and constitutional and academic question if quickly we had helped the people of Iraq rebuild their country and have a better country and a better life, people would have forgiven much more some of the other questionable information. And I really do believe the current situation is potentially very dangerous and very bad for everybody. So, we should focus on getting that right. And then the questions of how we got to war, we should learn lessons about, but dealing with the danger that Iraq gets worse and America gets bogged down, and the Middle East gets more dangerous, is where we should all focus our energy now. (Applause.)

GB: Clare Short, thank you very much indeed for that. I think you've demonstrated two things tonight very clearly. One, why you are and why you will certainly remain an ex-member of Prime Minister Blair's government. (Laughter.) And two, why you have such a reputation for plain speaking and telling it like it is. So, thank you very much indeed, Clare Short. (Applause.)