31 May 2003
In a wide-ranging interview the Prime Minister discusses Iraq, Europe, the Middle East, the Euro and Public Services. Mr Blair said that he had no doubt that investigations would show evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Read the interview in full
Interviewer
Prime Minister, by any measure this has been a very varied trip which you are engaged on. I suppose Iraq must be the highlight though?
Prime Minister
Iraq was important to thank the troops and to just lay out again for people exactly what they went through and how brilliantly they did and to congratulate them for their courage and their professionalism.
Interviewer
It’s a difficult question, but what were you feeling as you went round Iraq and saw obviously the clear damage which had been done and the troops, many of them saying this is a dump, we want to go home.
Prime Minister
Well of course the troops want to go home, and the fact is that Iraq was in a terrible situation long before the conflict ever began. I mean the real problems of people in Basra or in Baghdad are not problems caused by the coalition, they are problems caused by 30 years of Saddam. Now there’s a huge job of reconstruction, and frankly my main feeling, as well as pride in the troops because I actually thought their morale was high and they were fully behind what they had done, but I think my main preoccupation was how are we going to turn round a country where you are not just starting from scratch but you are starting from the situation where it has been governed in a way that is just almost unimaginable for decades.
Interviewer
But at the moment the people are worse off, aren’t they? The disorder on the streets, even the facilities such as electricity and water. They are worse off than they were before the conflict started.
Prime Minister
I don’t accept that for a single instant, incidentally. Certainly down in Basra in the South, people have never had full electricity all day. They have always had problems with water. There have been outbreaks of cholera virtually every year.
Interviewer
….. looted for example
Prime Minister
Well they have been under the thumb and repression of Saddam and yes, there are problems to do with law and order and to do with security, partly because as you know, Saddam actually emptied the prisons last year and many of those are the criminal elements. Now in fact we are getting on top of that down in Basra and the South. In Baghdad there’s still a long way to go. But don’t be under any illusion at all, people in Iraq are still delighted to be liberated from Saddam.
Interviewer
We didn’t see any of it did we, when we were in Iraq? We didn’t see any cheering throngs. It wasn’t like when you went to former Yugoslavia, for example.
Prime Minister
Actually I don’t think that’s true either. When I was in the school, even though obviously for security reasons it had to be kept very quiet, by the time we got back out of the school you probably weren’t there at that part of it ? but there were absolutely hordes of people outside.
Interviewer
But there was also an armoured guard and according to one reporter who was there, an attempt to loot the school immediately after you had left.
Prime Minister
Well I don’t know about that. I mean the school has actually been rebuilt and it’s functioning well and according to the teachers the school’s in good shape. I honestly can’t answer what happens afterwards. But look, there’s going to be problems. Rebuilding, reconstructing Iraq is an enormous task. But don’t be in any doubt at all that it was the right thing to do. This is a country where literally tens of thousands of people were dying every year as a result of Saddam and his regime. Now of course they need to get their public services up and running, they need to not just repair the electricity, a lot of which was sabotaged by some of Saddam’s troops when they were retreating, but we have got to renew the whole infrastructure, we have got to make sure now that sanctions are lifted that trade can begin again. But if you go to that port at Um Qasar, that is potentially a wealthy city. Iraq is potentially one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The tragedy of Iraq is that it is one of the poorest countries because of the way that it was run. Now we are only ? what - 2 months after the end of the conflict. Barely even that, so this is going to take some time. Of course it will, but the fact is that sanctions now have lifted, the UN is now involved in it, we are getting the humanitarian aid in, and the reconstruction work is beginning. But it is going to take a long.
Interviewer
How long do you think there will be British troops on the ground there?
Prime Minister
I don’t know, and I think it depends really how many, because obviously we have already drawn down British troops, so I can’t be exactly sure how many we will have over what period of time. But we have got to make sure that …
Interviewer
This time next year there could still be a British presence?
Prime Minister
Well, I just don’t know at the moment because it really depends on what happens. But in any event there is a huge differenc between having tens of thousands of troops there and a far smaller presence in order to assist with various tasks. But a lot will depend now on how the reconstruction effort goes, on how the UN and other Agencies are able to make things work on the ground, but I know at each stage of this indeed you can get this also when people talk about Afghanistan and you get reports out of it and people say that there are still problems here and problems there. These are countries that have been wrecked countries. They were failed states. It takes a long time for them to rebuild and change themselves. But what they have got now what Iraq has now ? is the chance for genuine freedom and when I met a group of the Iraqi senior people, clerics and local politicians and others …
Interviewer
Who apparently didn’t want to be seen in public with you.
Prime Minister
I don’t think that’s true at all. I think they would have been perfectly pleased to have been seen in public with me.
Interviewer
I thought there were no pictures no cameras. But I haven’t been told who you saw. They were at their request we were told.
Prime Minister
Well I honestly don’t know about that at all. All I know is that I met them and they seemed perfectly content to talk very frankly and freely about what they saw as the problems and also what they saw as the opportunities.
Interviewer
Is it a certainty that there will not be an Islamic state in Iraq? Can you guarantee that, even if the majority vote for that?
Prime Minister
I don’t that’s where people want to go at all. Indeed ..
Interviewer
If they did?
Prime Minister
Well, let’s just wait and see what happens, rather than speculate on it. I think when you look at Iraq and how it is going to develop, if it develops in the way that certainly the people I was talking to want it to develop, they want it to develop in terms of religious freedom, and they want to make sure that it is successful and prosperous. They do not want to turn it into a sort of religious fundamentalist state.
Interviewer
So, after this period of reconstruction, will you say the war is justified because the Iraqi people are better off, or do you have to find the evidence of a weapons of mass destruction threat which has so far not been found.
Prime Minister
Well, let me just deal with this weapons of mass destruction threat, and when people say that so far it’s not been found.
Interviewer
That is including when Ministers say that. Some of them have conceded that.
Prime Minister
No, that’s not the case. What we have said about weapons of mass destruction is that there is no doubt at all that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and has used weapons of mass destruction. There’s a reason why we had 12 years of UN Resolutions, inspectors going in, inspectors going out. Those weapons of mass destruction were a major part of Saddam’s regime. Now, once Saddam goes, our priority at the moment in Iraq is the reconstruction of Iraq. We have got teams of people however who are being tasked with interviewing the scientists and experts who worked on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programme ? the chemical, biological, the nuclear weapons programme. We have then to investigate literally hundreds, possibly even thousands of different sites. That work is only just beginning. What I have said to people is, over the coming weeks and months we will assemble this evidence and then we will give it to people. And I have no doubt whatever that the evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will be there. Absolutely.
Interviewer
Of an immediate threat at the time of the war?
Prime Minister
Absolutely. If you take the two trailers that we have already discovered which are part, almost certainly ……. our intelligence agencies and the American intelligence agencies believe that they are part of a mobile biological weapons productions facility. There’s no doubt at all that that is part of a weapons of mass destruction programme that was continuing for a significant period of time, long after the inspectors had left Iraq.
Interviewer
So just suppose Donald Rumsfeld is right and the weapons have been destroyed by Saddam Hussein, or indeed ….
Prime Minister
Well, hang on a minute, I’m not even sure ….. I haven’t even read the text of what he said, so as far as I am aware, there’s nobody on either side of the water who is any doubt about the existence of weapons of mass destruction.
Interviewer
Well, just supposing nothing more particularly impressive is found, does it matter on the basis of the evidence which you believe which you already had.
Prime Minister
Of course it would matter, and that’s why it’s important that we carry out this task, but we don’t need to do it with the same urgency that we would when Saddam was actually in power and these weapons of mass destruction could be used. The fact is now our focus has got to be on the immediate reconstruction of Iraq but I keep saying to people, be patient about this. Those people who are sitting there saying oh it is all going to be proved to be a great big fib got out by the security services. There will be no weapons of mass destruction. Just wait and have a little patience.
Interviewer
You must have been surprised that it has taken so long, aren’t you?
Prime Minister
No, I’m not surprised that it has taken so long because it is happening now. People are being interviewed. Scientists are being talked to. There is information already coming to us. But what I ….
Interviewer
Do you know stuff we don’t know about evidence?
Prime Minister
I certainly do know some of the stuff that has been already accumulated as the result of interviews and others….
Interviewer
Which is not public?
Prime Minister
…… which is not yet public but what we are going to do is assemble that evidence and present it properly to people. We are not going to give a running commentary on it. And as I pointed out a moment or two ago, there are literally hundreds, possibly thousands of potential WMD sites that are still being investigated. We have only just begun that task. And you know when you go back and you look at the events leading up to this conflict, again the intelligence that we used, that we put out for example in the dossier, is intelligence that comes through our Joint Intelligence Committee, it’s not invented by politicians and it’s not invented by our security service.
Interviewer
Well, just to clarify something, because again there have been confusing statements about this, that statement which was included in your original dossier which you repeated to Parliament about a 45 minute period between a decision to use weapons and the possible use of them, was that based on one uncorroborated intelligence source as Adam Ingram said?
Prime Minister
I’m not going into how the intelligence came to us, but I can assure you that everything in that dossier was cleared by the Joint Intelligence Committee, and was their judgment - not my judgement, or another politician’s judgment ? their judgement. And what is more as the investigations proceed over the weeks and months, as I say interviewing the Iraqi scientists, looking at the sites where we may find weapons of mass destruction, or the production facilities for them, then I have no doubt at all that we will be able to give people a complete picture at the end of it, both of the intelligence that we had and what we’ve actually found.
Interviewer
The latest suggestion this weekend is that Colin Powell and Jack Straw actually discussed the fact that they were worried there wasn’t sufficient evidence.
Prime Minister
Well, again I have absolutely no knowledge about that and I think that the Foreign Office have already put out a statement strongly disputing it. What you are getting here is ? you know this, and I know this ? is people saying we have anonymous sources somewhere within the system, claiming this and claiming that, and what do you do with these anonymous sources?
Interviewer
We also have people like Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of State for Defence in America, saying that actually weapons of mass destruction were only ever "a bureaucratic pretext for the war".
Prime Minister
Well again, did he actually say that?
Interviewer
Yes he did.
Prime Minister
Well, I think what he actually was saying was this, was that weapons of mass destruction had to be the basis in law under the United Nations for dealing with this issue, which is the point that I made throughout.
Interviewer
Which could be a bureaucratic pretext in other words.
Prime Minister
That’s not the same as saying it’s a bureaucratic pretext, in the sense that it doesn’t actually exist, but we are going to invent it in order to give it some justification. The fact is the reason for acting was weapons of mass destruction, and the link and potential link to terrorism. And I’ve no doubt at all we were right to do that. Absolutely no doubt at all. The relevance of the nature of the regime however was, was that the nature of the regime was influential in two ways. First of all if you do have such a regime with weapons of mass destruction, they are all the more dangerous because of the nature of that regime and secondly the nature of the regime is relevant because if you are to take military action, you are actually doing humanity a favour by getting rid of Saddam Hussein, and when you discover literally the graves of thousands of people who have been murdered by him, when you see the sheer devastation ? and you must have talked to some of the soldiers about the shock that they had just at how people were treated under Saddam ? I don’t think that there’s any doubt at all that we were justified in the action which we took.
Interviewer
Can you guarantee that there won’t be British soldiers rolling over the borders from Iraq or Kuwait into other countries in the Middle East?
Prime Minister
Well, we’ve no plans, and neither have we ever discussed any plans to do so.
Interviewer
Iran, Syria?
Prime Minister
No. The idea that we are going to go on some rolling mission occupying different countries in the Middle East. No that is not true. There are real concerns in relation to both those countries, but we are raising those concerns with the governments.
Interviewer
Your special envoy was saying that he was worried about the influence of Iran, for example, in Iraq. Is there any possibility of a military option to deal with regime change there?
Prime Minister
No, nobody is discussing an invasion of Iran as far as I am aware.
Interviewer
Would you be party to this if the Americans decided they wanted to do it.
Prime Minister
I don’t believe the Americans have any intention whatever on an invasion of Iran. Now when you raise these questions, do we have concerns about the regime in Iran? Yes we do. We have concerns about their nuclear weapons programme, we have concerns about terrorism, and their support for terrorism, but we are trying to deal with those issues with the Iranian Government, through dialogue. It is important that they recognise however that these are serious questions and we need to deal with them.
Interviewer
Do you think this latest Middle East peace initiative is going to work? Do you think Israel will really start removing, destroying its settlements?
Prime Minister
I think there is a chance that it can work, yes. I think we have got to resolve the security issue immediately. I think that’s the main issue. And I also think that it’s part of what is actually changing in the Middle East at the moment. I think one of the interesting things is following the conflict in Iraq, I think there is now the possibility of real change in the whole of the Middle East, and the Middle East peace process is one important part of that.
Interviewer
When you come to an international meeting like this ? it’s the first big one but you have seen most of the leaders quite recently ? I mean we have seen on the feeds seemingly you getting a bit of a lecture from Jacques Chirac, and then another lecture from Joschka Fischer, do you feel that you are a sort of pariah or a peacemaker at this ..
Prime Minister
On what is that based?
Interviewer
Well, pictures that we’ve seen?
Prime Minister
What, when I’m talking to them?
Interviewer
Yes.
Prime Minister
Well, does that mean I’m getting a lecture?
Interviewer
Well, we can read body language, can’t we?
Prime Minister
Well, I honestly don’t know what you mean by body language in relation to that. What you mean the fact that I’m ….
Interviewer
Finger wagging, and that sort of thing.
Prime Minister
Oh, rubbish.
Interviewer
So you don’t feel a pariah at all for having backed the United States when you meet your European partners.
Prime Minister
No, because a large number of the European partners backed the United States. In fact, if you include the Accession countries, of the 25 people sitting round that room, a majority of them supported the US and we just got the UN Resolution the thing that people said we wouldn’t get, we got that ? and we got that, to be fair, with French and German support.
Interviewer
So what’s your role here.
Prime Minister
The role here, I think, is to do with the European Union and our relationship with Russia, but also just to talk with other leaders about the common issues that ..
Interviewer
But are you also just the advance man for George Bush in a sense?
Prime Minister
No, I don’t think that, but I think there is a real desire to come together and to rebuild the transatlantic alliance and I think that both in respect of the speech that I gave in Poland, George Bush’s speech in Poland, the whole atmospherics to do with the discussions happening between countries, I think there is a sense in which people realise we have been through a situation of real division and now is the time for us to come back together and find some common ground.
Interviewer
But someone like Putin or Chirac is never going to buy your acceptance, if you like, that America is the dominant power because they believe in the interests of their countries and the rest of the world there ought to be a multi-polar world.
Prime Minister
Well, I think that argument has now been had, as it were, and it is interesting the way that people are seeing whether there is a concept of partnership that doesn’t end up as subservience to America. That’s the concern that Europeans have. They want to be partnering America, but they don’t want to be America’s servant. That’s a perfectly understandable position. And I think if you look at what has happened in the past few weeks, in the United Nations we have come back together again, in the Middle East George Bush is pushing that process forward. And how many times did people tell me that he was never going to do that, that I was being hopelessly naively optimistic in thinking that he would, but he is, and in relation to Africa and global poverty, America’s made a huge financial commitment, and a financial commitment that frankly calls upon the rest of us to do our bit too, as we in Britain are doing, so I think my attitude to this is you can construct an agenda which takes really seriously the issues of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, but adds to that then the Middle East, global poverty, climate change, the issues to do with, if you like, the concerns of other countries other than America, and I think that global agenda is there and can be adopted.
Interviewer
Do you think the European Union could ever be truly united with Britain still outside the Euro?
Prime Minister
I think the European Union can. I think that …
Interviewer
With Britain as a member?
Prime Minister
Sorry.
Interviewer
With Britain as a member if we stay outside the Euro indefinitely?
Prime Minister
I think the European Union will move forward in any event. I think the question for us is do we want to be a full part of the European Union and I think it is important that we are now. In relation to the Euro the economics have got to be right, because it is a huge decision for the British national economic interest. But I have got absolutely no doubt at all that it is in Britain’s interests to be a full-hearted member of Europe. There’s no point in being in the club unless you are going to exercise maximum influence. What’s fascinating about Europe is these new countries coming in from Central and Eastern Europe are countries that totally share Britain’s view of Europe not as a super state, but as a Europe of nations, Europe standing strong with the United States of America and the transatlantic alliance, Europe reforming itself economically. All these British perspectives are perspectives that we can win in Europe, but we are not going to win if we hang back.
Interviewer
But speaking of winning, your problem, as most people see it is, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, if you were to hold a Referendum on the Euro, or indeed on the Constitution, as you say you are not going to, you would almost certainly lose it, wouldn’t you?
Prime Minister
You can’t be sure about that at all. It’s going to be a big battle, there’s no doubt about that. There’s a big battle going on in Europe at the moment, but I look forward to it. This is a fundamental question for this country. Do we want to be part of the main strategic alliance right on our doorstep Europe do we really want to be partners, play our full part in it, make sure that it is shaped in the British national interest, or do we want to be marginalised and left without influence. Now that’s the choice and I think it’s a big choice for our country and although they are completely different issues, in a way just as in relation to Iraq I was prepared to go out and state what I believed in, and argue ..
Interviewer
Out of step with the current leadership of the European Union.
Prime Minister
Well not actually out of step with all of Europe.
Interviewer
Not all of Europe, I accept, but France, Germany ….
Prime Minister
France, Germany ?
Interviewer
Well, pretty important countries.
Prime Minister
Yes, they are pretty important. So are Spain and Italy and the 10 Accession countries coming in.
Interviewer
Russia, we could add, but it’s not in the European Union.
Prime Minister
The fact is there was a division in Europe, but you see this is what is fascinating about the difference between the British perspective in many quarters and the rest of Europe. France and Germany were on a different side from Britain, Italy and Spain. But France doesn’t sit there saying well, since we are in a different position from Britain, Italy and Spain on Iraq, I suppose Europe is not for us. They don’t regard themselves as having …. Is France any less a nation because …
Interviewer
But they do say, don’t they, that actually Europe might not be for you?
Prime Minister
They don’t say that actually. I think that the vast majority of those countries around … You were talking to me about what Jacques Chirac and I were talking about, we were actually talking in fact extremely constructively about the future, having had these divisions over Iraq, and I think that for the majority of the people in Europe they really want Britain as part of Europe, but the most important thing is it is in the British national interest to be part of Europe. In today’s world in terms of trade, in terms of business, in terms of industry in terms of influence, it is in our interests to be a major player in Europe. There’s no point in being in the European Union unless we fight for the British national interest, unless we have the confidence to win the argument, and all I’m saying to you is that when these arguments happen in Europe we shouldn’t as Britain say well if there is an argument in Europe we had better take our bat home, we should be in there, out on the pitch.
Interviewer
But I’m asking about British public opinion. And when you put leading newspapers in each of their group: the leading broadsheet, The Telegraph, leading tabloid The Sun, the leading mid-market paper The Mail and they are all campaigning against you on, for example, the Constitution, and the Euro, can you possibly win, can you beat them?
Prime Minister
You’ve got to take your case out to the country and you have got to realise that yes there is a sense in which people will look upon this as a headline argument, and these newspaper headlines, and some of the stories coming out that they are going to take our North Sea oil or millions of jobs will be lost if we sign up to the European Convention. Yes, there’s a headline debate, but I think with the British people they will also listen to a considered argument, and they’re a lot smarter and they are willing to engage in argument in a much more deep way than people sometimes think.
Interviewer
But you can’t trust them in a Referendum, for example, because they might go the wrong way.
Prime Minister
You certainly can trust them. If you take a big constitutional decision like the Euro you should trust people, and that’s why if there is a recommendation by the government to join the single currency there will be a Referendum.
Interviewer
How open, as you go into the Cabinet discussion this week, and then the following Monday the Statement to Parliament, how open is the European question on the Euro at this stage?
Prime Minister
Well the government hasn’t come to its collective decision ..
Interviewer
Genuinely hasn’t?
Prime Minister
Yes, so we will take that after the Cabinet decision but there’s no point in trying to get from me what the decision is going to be at the moment.
Interviewer
No, but it is still an open possibility that there could be a Referendum before the next election.
Prime Minister
The Cabinet will take its decision on the basis of the collective discussion and no decisions have yet been taken.
Interviewer
And how will that decision be taken?
Prime Minister
It will be taken by the Cabinet.
Interviewer
Will there be a vote, as it were?
Prime Minister
Well, I don’t think there need be a vote. I actually think what is interesting I mean I know a lot of people say well Europe was a huge problem for the last Tory Government, now it’s a big problem for a Labour Government, it’s not really. There’s nobody around that table who’s not in favour of joining the single currency in principle.
Interviewer
And, in spite of all your successes if, at the end of your term, Britain is not in the Euro, you will have failed in one of your key objectives.
Prime Minister
Well, I believe it’s important for Britain to be part of the single currency, but only if the economics are right so ……
Interviewer
Yes but you could get the economics right and still lose a Referendum.
Prime Minister
That’s possible. You could do, because in the end it’s for the people to decide, but there’s no point in being in politics unless you are prepared to take on the big issues and this is a big issue. It’s a big decision of destiny for our country and if we decide, as we have for almost half a century, that we are just going to hang back in Europe, not participate fully, I think it would be a shame. It would reduce the prospects of British prosperity and influence in the future, but it’s a decision in the end that we have got to be sure that the economics are right, and then the British people have got to have their say.
Interviewer
But it could come sooner rather than later.
Prime Minister
You’ll have to wait for the Cabinet decision on that.
Interviewer
Finally, a cynic might say that a campaigning politician like you would rather we all rushed round talking about the Euro than talking about delivery in the public services.
Prime Minister
I’m very happy to talk about delivery in the public services. In fact if you give me another 20 minutes I’ll talk to you about it. Whatever the problems just remember one thing. This is a government where now every single indicator on the National Health Service, in-patient or out-patient on waiting, is better than we inherited. In relation to cancer, cardiac treatment, far better than what we inherited. In schools every single set of school results, primary school results, GCSCs, A-Levels, better than we came to power, and crime is down, not up since we came to power. Are there huge problems still to tackle? Yes, but the idea that nothing has happened or money hasn’t delivered anything on public services is absurd and I am very happy to …
Interviewer
Yet there are teachers being laid off, aren’t they.
Prime Minister
First of all, let’s be quite clear about this. There are teachers laid off every year.
Interviewer
Net, I’m talking about.
Prime Minister
Net, let’s wait and see because you won’t get the full figures in fact until next January. What you have got is surveys of a limited nature of certain of the schools, but it’s true there has been a funding problem in certain schools, and not all of it has been to do with falling rolls, so it’s true there is that problem. We are looking at it, and investigating it school by school and dealing with it. But don’t be under any doubt if you go to any school virtually in the country, certainly of the ones in my Constituency, you can see real change as the result of extra investment. Now, some of them have got problems this year for all the reasons we know, not least the fact we are putting a big amount of extra money into teachers’ pay and teachers’ pension provisions, and these are things people would want us to do, but we have got to make sure that some of those schools, which are obviously in difficulty are helped, and that’s what we are trying to do at the moment. But if you look at the public services overall, there are areas of weakness, there are areas where we haven’t done as well as we should have done, but there are also areas where we can be very proud of what we’ve done.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, thank you.
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