Chapter 26
The invasion of Afghanistan began less than a month after 9/11. The destruction of the Twin Towers was generally acknowledged to have been the work of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization run by Osama bin Laden. Their training camps were known to be in Afghanistan, funded in part at least by the Taliban, which provided support and safe haven. In 1998 President Bill Clinton had launched cruise missile attacks on these camps in retaliation for the al-Qaeda attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa, but with little effect. On October 7, 2001, the aerial bombing of Afghanistan began, and Kabul fell a little over a month later.
At the beginning of the new year, Tony and I set off on an official trip to Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. By now the Foreign Office had acknowledged my usefulness, and while Tony talked with various officials, I visited a number of projects related to women.
Because of the color and vibrancy of the subcontinent, the poverty there always comes as a shock. Yet huge efforts were being made to harness the entrepreneurial skills of women. Near Dhaka I visited a microcredit program run by a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called BRAC, which had not only set up the cooperative where women learned to manage the microfinance loans they received but also delivered elementary health care and education to women. Some women would be trained in basic health-care principles and techniques and have access to things such as malaria tablets and contraception. Other women would be trained in women’s basic human rights under Islamic law, learning, for example, that husbands don’t own all their wives’ property and that a husband’s family can’t take away the wife’s property.
The British High Commission continues to be very involved in dealing with forced marriages and related issues, and I was taken to a refuge for women whose husbands’ families had been in some way dissatisfied with them — perhaps because of their physical appearance or their dowries. To substantiate their claims that these women were substandard, the husbands’ families poured acid from car batteries over the women’s heads. According to Human Rights Watch, in Pakistan such attacks killed 280 women and injured 750 in 2002 alone. In Bangladesh there were 485 acid attacks that year. With the increasing availability of car batteries, these horrific incidents multiplied. The women’s injuries defied description. They had no faces left, or at least no distinguishing features. It was as if their flesh had melted. Hugging these women was, for me, a way of defying their aggressors. I know how much it means to have human contact, and luckily I have never felt any physical repugnance toward any human being, though I believe that is the purpose of these cruel and cowardly attacks.
At that time in Bangladesh, both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were women (though they hated each other with a passion). It seems extraordinary to me that in a country where being a woman is apparently no barrier to high office, individual women are treated as being of less value than animals.
Wanting both to be comfortable and to show respect, I asked Babs Mahil to make my clothes for this trip. She also wanted to make something for Tony — a Nehru-style suit that he wore to the state banquet in India. I thought he looked very handsome, but the British press, true to form, had a real go at him. Sadly, he never wore the suit again. Although Alastair had claimed to approve, he was in fact generally of the opinion that Tony could wear anything as long as it was an ordinary suit, and he was to be the final arbiter of Tony’s attire.
Thus, when we arrived in Bangladesh, Tony wasn’t even wearing his own suit. Alastair had deemed it too crumpled, and so Magi Cleaver had been dispatched to the terminal to find another one. Some bemused young man, who turned out to be from our Department of International Development, was persuaded to give up his suit for an hour so that the British Prime Minister would look sufficiently smart. For the rest of the trip, André was in charge, and it just went to show once again that when André wasn’t there, things fell apart.
Our next destination, Kabul, was not on the official itinerary. Indeed, we were under a complete press embargo. “You don’t have to go,” Foreign Office officials had told me, but I was determined: “I’m going with Tony.” It had been nearly two months since Kabul had been taken, but it was still far from safe, which was why we flew in the middle of the night and would go no further than Bagram air base.
Unsurprisingly, this was the first time I had traveled in an army plane. It was designed for carrying troops, and I’d been warned that it was lacking in even the most basic creature comforts. There were no regular seats, and the toilet was a bucket. Not that I saw it: I decided I would rather die than climb over the press — sworn to silence in exchange for being allowed in on the secret — to go to the bucket in the back.
In fact, there weren’t that many of us, but Tony and I were lucky enough to be taken into the cockpit, and we were there from takeoff to landing. The crew members were special services people (elite SAS commandos) who had been flying in and out of Afghanistan on various missions since the war began, and they made it seem as easy as a school bus route. These were the kind of daredevil pilots beloved by writers, not faint of heart in any way.
Tony and I sat in the back of the cockpit where the engineer would normally sit, and above us was a sort of see-through dome where the gunner would stand and direct the fire. As we took off, Tony asked if he could stand up and watch. So there he was, peering out into the night and asking them about this and that. One of the pilots took on the mantle of tour guide, pointing out different peaks and telling us when we were crossing the Khyber Pass — an area that is lawless to this day. As we flew into Afghan airspace over the mountains of northern Pakistan, all the lights went off. Even though we might not be seen, the pilot helpfully explained, we could still be hit by a heat-seeking missile. An indication on the radar that we might have been spotted resulted in immediate avoidance tactics, and the plane began to swerve and sway, the idea being that any missile already deployed would be misled, aiming for where we had been rather than where we were now.
So Tony was standing up there, watching all of this, while I was strapped in, thinking, Why did I come? I’ve got four children at home, one of whom is less than two years old. It was nutty of me to think this was a good idea. Believe it or not, as I was sitting there, my entire life really did flash before my eyes. All I could think about was that if I hadn’t come along, at least one of us would have been alive for the kids. Finally, at 1:30 a.m., we arrived at Bagram air base.
It’s only when you land in a military plane that you realize that a commercial landing is basically done for the benefit of the passengers. There was no question that we had touched down — indeed, “touched” is much too mild a word for it.
Make no mistake, Afghanistan in January is cold. I had my big heavy coat on, but it wasn’t enough.
The red carpet was out; I hadn’t expected this kind of welcome. But I was soon disabused of its purpose. “Whatever you do,” the copilot said as we walked down the steps, “stay on the carpet.” Bagram had been mined by Taliban forces, and although some of the mines had been cleared, there was still a way to go. “We can guarantee that as long as you stay on the red carpet, you’ll be okay.” (Whenever I find myself walking on a red carpet, I remember that arrival at Bagram.)
Even though it was the middle of the night, we were greeted with due ceremony by President Karzai and his Cabinet. I was so grateful to have landed safely I could have kissed them all.
The SAS had played a very important part in the invasion, and I was totally enthralled by the stories of how they’d stormed Taliban hideouts, real tales of derring-do. It was impossible to imagine how close they’d been to death and how, against all odds, they’d managed to pull it off. Staff from our Department of International Development gave an impressive presentation on what we were going to do to help Afghanistan build itself up again. The Afghans said over and over how grateful they were and how fantastic our people were doing. If you want someone to help rebuild your country, they said, the British have the right stuff.
While Tony had a meeting with Karzai, I was introduced to the Minister for Women, Sima Samar, and together we spoke to a group of women soldiers who were helping with the peacekeeping. When we asked them what their impressions were, they told us that each day more and more women were visible on the streets, although few were uncovering their faces. The minister told them that for the people of Kabul, the very presence of these young women soldiers doing responsible peacekeeping work was an important step toward the recognition of women’s right to see and be seen. When I asked her what I could do to help, what the women of Afghanistan wanted, her message was simple: Please make sure you keep the pressure on the men. Please don’t forget the women of Afghanistan.
While we were talking with troops based at the airport, Tony took a call from Gordon Brown’s office. I knew from his face what had happened. Gordon and Sarah’s newborn baby, Jennifer, had died. We had been on our way to Hyderabad when the news had come through that she was dangerously ill. She had been born prematurely, and although she was a fighter, things were not looking good. Throughout the trip I had found it very hard to smile for the cameras knowing what they were facing back home. As a comparatively new father himself, Tony also was all too aware of the emotional strain they were under.
We arrived back in England on Tuesday and were in Scotland on Friday. We went first to their house. Sarah was so calm, and it was very brave of her to let us come. Whereas in the old days Gordon’s flat had always been a bit of a mess, Sarah had made their house into a welcoming home. Losing a baby under any circumstances is terrible, and losing your first baby is utterly devastating. My heart went out to both of them.
From our visits to Washington, we had got to know Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for President in 2000, and his wife, Tipper, reasonably well. So I think it’s fair to say that our hearts sank when the results of the 2000 election were finally in. In fact, Tony had felt very strongly that Gore had played it wrong during the campaign and that he should have used Bill Clinton more rather than distancing himself from the President. He seemed not to realize how much goodwill Bill still commanded and what a great communicator he was. Like the rest of the world, we followed the drama of the election, and for me, as a lawyer, it was fascinating to see the U.S. Supreme Court splitting along political lines. It would never have happened like that in the UK, because the appointment of our judges is not so politicized.
We had watched George W. Bush on television and felt that he didn’t seem comfortable with foreign affairs, yet Tony was determined that they should have a good relationship. Others of our party, notably Alastair and Sally Morgan, had a more mixed view.
As we prepared for our first meeting with the Bushes at Camp David at the end of February 2001, I said to Tony, “Let’s face it, he’s probably not looking forward to it much either. He knows we’re friends of the Clintons, and he also knows you’re a Labour Prime Minister and all the rest of it, so everybody’s going to be a bit nervous, everybody’s going to want to try and get along.”
The fact that the encounter was in the semirustic setting of Camp David was indicative, in a way, of the difference between the two presidents. The Clintons had entertained us lavishly with a formal banquet at the White House. And whereas they never really got going till late, the Bushes were tucked up in bed by ten. We had come from Ottawa, where I had been half-frozen, having no idea of how heart-stoppingly cold it would be. From Washington we were flown out to Camp David in the presidential helicopter Marine One, which is less like a helicopter and more like a small plane.
We had been to Camp David once before with the Clintons, and it had not been what I’d expected. Because it was the presidential equivalent of Chequers, I thought it would be a country home. But Camp David is a U.S. Marine base. Everyone stays in wooden “cabins” named after trees. Each cabin has a lounge, a bathroom, and two bedrooms, all decorated to a luxurious standard. (When the Clintons were there, the hand lotion and soap came from a supplier in Arkansas.) The cabins are all spread out, and whenever you venture outside, you’re followed by military personnel.
That first night with the Bushes, we had an early dinner. The meal over, the President said, “Why don’t we all watch a movie?” So we did. He got all the new releases on DVD, he explained, and that night we watched Meet the Parents with Robert De Niro. There were armchairs ranged around, and I sat next to George, who was soon laughing away. It was a perfectly friendly evening, very low-key. We were joined by our ambassador, Christopher Meyer, and his wife, Catherine, and of course by Jonathan Powell, Alastair, and the others.
In fact, the Prime Minister and the President got on remarkably well. George is actually a very funny, charming man with a quirky sense of humor. The reason he gets bad press, he says, is “because I talk Texan.” Bush thinks Texan, too. Bill Clinton is also from the South, but while Clinton may talk southern, he doesn’t think southern.
There had certainly been a slight sense of anxiety before the meeting, but by the time we left, the general consensus was that “he’s a guy we can easily get on with.” We may not have agreed in terms of domestic politics, but that is largely irrelevant in terms of international diplomacy. And the special relationship between the UK and the United States is precisely why, when Bush and the Republicans took over, there was never any question that we would do everything we could to get on well with them.
As we were escorted to Marine One after breakfast, I realized that we hadn’t been back to our cabin to get André or our luggage.
“Don’t worry,” I was told. “He’ll be on the helicopter.” He wasn’t, but by the time I found out, it was too late. André wasn’t the only one who’d been left behind. There was a garden girl as well, not to mention our bags. Apparently they had both been waiting patiently for us to get back from breakfast. Somebody had to arrange for another helicopter to bring them back to Washington, and Christopher Meyer was not amused, claiming that it was somehow my fault.
The next time we saw the Bushes was at Chequers a month or so later. By then we knew that George didn’t really like formal entertaining, and if they’d come to Number 10, we’d have to have had some kind of formal dinner. They were much happier in an informal setting, and we were very clear that we wanted it to be just en famille. When we were told that Condoleezza Rice wanted to stay the night, we said no. Everyone could come for the meetings, but there were to be no sleepovers apart from the family. The day they were arriving, Linda, who was then running Chequers, came to see me.
“I’ve managed to accommodate Mr. Bush’s doctor,” she said. “I’ve put him in my room.”
“What doctor?” I asked.
“Dr. Rice.”
“Dr. Rice?” And then the penny dropped. Condi, as she is always known, had conned Linda into thinking the President needed to have his medical doctor close at hand.
Like us, the Bushes are very family oriented. Laura was an only child brought up by her mother, and she married into this big family, with everyone having loads of children. But she and George have only two children, twin daughters, one named for her mother and the other for his: Jenna and Barbara. That evening at Chequers was very much a family affair, and in addition to our children, James Dove, Euan’s friend from the Oratory, was there. He had always been interested in politics, and perhaps because he was present, the conversation was more wide-ranging than it might have been if it had just been us. Certainly I can’t see Tony or me raising the question of capital punishment, but that’s exactly what one of the kids did. So there we were, discussing the death penalty: in one corner, an American President who believed in it; in the other, a human rights lawyer who very definitely did not. I stated my view, saying that the death penalty is inherently wrong and that if you make a mistake, you can’t put it right.
“Well, that’s not the way it is in America,” George said. “We take the eye-for-an-eye view.”
But it was completely and utterly good-hearted. The way George handled those kids and their questions, I thought, All credit to him. And I know that both James and Euan were pleasantly surprised that he could string an argument together and didn’t turn into some sort of raging bigot. I often say that I must be the only person on the left that George Bush gets to socialize with. But no one can say — at least not me — that he doesn’t have a sense of humor.
One of the last things Bill Clinton did when he stepped down from office was to sign the Rome Treaty, which set up the International Criminal Court (ICC). After the Balkans War and the Rwanda genocide, the UN had decided to set up the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Tribunal for Rwanda. The success of these tribunals had led to the establishment of the ICC as a permanent court based in The Hague. The ICC would try people charged with crimes against humanity and genocide either when their own country had no infrastructure or when the country asked the international community to conduct the trial.
In recent years America has signed very few international charters, a pattern described as “American Exceptionalism.” This is essentially an attitude of moral superiority, a belief that America is qualitatively different from other nations and so does not need to buy into international treaties. An example is the International Covenant on the Rights of the Child (CRC). This charter has been signed by every country in the world but two: Somalia, which has barely got a government, and the United States. One of the reasons America didn’t sign the CRC was that, at the time, it was still executing juveniles. The Supreme Court has subsequently abolished this horror, but whoever the President is, it will be difficult for him or her to get Congress to change its attitude. Once a country has signed a treaty, it then has to ratify it. In the United States, this needs to be done with the approval of the Senate, and the Senate, it should be noted, is full of people who don’t have passports. So when Clinton signed the Rome Treaty, he knew it wouldn’t be ratified. It was simply his way of singeing Congress’s beard.
Once an international treaty is signed, a minimum number of countries must ratify it before it comes into force. By 2002 it was becoming clear that the Rome Treaty would soon reach the magic number of countries. In addition to its other provisions, it was the first international treaty to require a minimum number of women judges. I had become involved in the campaign to make sure enough women were nominated to exceed the minimum figure. As very few international courts have women at all, this became a pet project of mine.
Everyone in the international legal community was resigned to the fact that the United States would not ratify the treaty and would thus be unable to nominate any judges. But then came rumors of something worse. George Bush, it was said, was going to formally unsign the treaty — that is, take America’s signature off. One of Tony’s advisers suggested that he approach George directly, on a personal level, saying, “This is just silly. Nothing is going to change. It just gives the wrong message to the international community; it makes them think you simply don’t care.”
I agreed. “You must raise it, Tony,” I said, over and over, until the opportunity came for me to take matters into my own hands.
George and Laura had invited us to visit them after Easter 2002 at their ranch in Crawford, Texas. As Euan and Nicholas were both busy with schoolwork, I decided to take Kathryn and Leo on a trip to Disney World while Tony stayed with the boys in England and met me later in Texas. After four days of full-on fun, we spent Easter with an old friend of mine from the LSE who had a holiday home in Florida. While Jackie stayed in the Sunshine State with the children, I set off for a breast cancer charity event in Dallas, which I was doing jointly with Laura.
Laura is a very warm, genuine person whom I liked the moment I met, and I immediately felt completely comfortable talking with her. It was clear that we had common ground; like me, she is interested in other women and women’s issues generally. When we met, we would talk about our families and about literature, because we share a love of books. We had more of a “female friends” sort of relationship than I had with Hillary. My conversations with Hillary focused more on ideas, and of course we had our politics in common. To a degree, when I first met her, I was a little in awe. As Bill’s wife, she had already been the First Lady for a number of years and was experienced in the job. But when Laura and I met, we were on a much more equal footing and have remained so. Our children, too, are more of an age.
Laura trained as a teacher, and in an exchange between colleges, she did part of her training in Oxfordshire, so she is surprisingly well-informed about life in England. I knew that Laura was involved in a breast cancer charity, but it was the American ambassador to Hungary who had suggested this joint event when she’d heard I was going to Texas. It was my first experience of the sheer professionalism of American fund-raising, and it was extraordinary: people paid at different levels to get different levels of access. At the reception Laura and I stood beside each other as people made their way along the line. Just like one of my Downing Street receptions, I decided, and I began chatting to those at the head of the queue. Immediately I heard a voice in my ear: “Mrs. Blair, you’re to stop talking to these people. Just stand here, shake their hands, and let the photographer take the picture. That’s all they’ve paid for. We’ve two hundred and twenty people to get through, so please understand. All they want is their picture with you and the First Lady. Please don’t talk to them. That’s not the point.” So that’s exactly what we did. It was a conveyor belt.
Then came dinner. Just about everyone was a Republican, and these were Texas Republicans. I found myself in a nearly intolerable situation. These women would start by saying how lovely Laura was, and I would concur, and then they’d start comparing her to “that terrible Clinton woman,” going on and on about Hillary in the most disparaging way. I couldn’t believe anyone could be so rude. I didn’t say anything. There was absolutely no point, and I didn’t want to make a scene, but I had to keep reminding myself that half the proceeds of that night were going to Breast Cancer Care. As I watched Laura being her usual charming self, I saw her in an entirely new light: she lived in a different world.
It was a big honor to be invited to Crawford. This was the Bushes’ private home. I traveled from Dallas by car, but it soon became clear that most of those in the Bush circle — rich oil people — hopped around by helicopter. The road was like one you might see in an American movie about the West, just miles and miles of emptiness. Eventually we came to Crawford, the “town,” where there’s a café, a gas pump, and little else. The members of the press who had come out with Tony were furious because there was nowhere decent to stay. I remember thinking on the long drive out, If I were the American President and could live anywhere, I don’t think this is the place I would choose. The house, however, was delightful: clean lines and modern, with paintings everywhere and no clutter; a really warm place.
Just before meeting for lunch on our last day, I had one final go at Tony: “Have you mentioned the thing about the International Criminal Court?”
“Don’t fuss, woman. I’ve got important things to do.”
Well, so had I.
As usual I was sitting next to George at lunch. “Look, George,” I began, “I just wanted to talk to you about the International Criminal Court. People are saying that you’re going to unsign. While everybody understands that the Senate is not going to ratify the treaty, do you really want to stick two fingers up to the international community? I know Clinton put you in this position, but it’s not going to affect anyone in America, so why not leave it as it is? Then at least you’ll seem to be part of it. But particularly now, when you’ve got all this goodwill from the international community, why rock the boat?”
George looked over at Condi, who was never far away, and beckoned her over.
“Condi,” he said, “remind me to get you to tell me something about this.”
Tony was sitting at another table with Laura and heard nothing.
As we said our good-byes, George put his hand on Tony’s arm and said, “Tell you what, Tony. That wife of yours, she’s very persistent on this international court thing.”
Tony’s smile faded as he hurried me toward the car. “Cherie, what can you have been thinking of?”
Just as the car was about to pull away, George came running out after us, and the driver wound down the window.
“And now,” he said, “I understand why Clinton signed that bloody thing in the first place! It’s all your fault, Cherie!” It wasn’t true, of course. I had never raised it with Bill, but we all laughed, and he took it in good spirit.
Sadly, my little intervention made no difference. In the end the President did unsign it. But I think it’s also the nature of the man that he didn’t take my comments as a personal insult. It was my point of view; it just happened not to be the view of his adviser.
As for the campaign to get more women judges, we were very successful. In fact, we exceeded the quota.