Morning:
8°c
Am I alone in thinking former MI6 head Sir John Scarlett dropped a bombshell this week?
Many who attended his hearing at the Chilcot Inquiry claimed to be bored rigid by the proceedings and complained that the names of Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair were not even mentioned. However, one fact emerged that crystallised the whole Iraq crisis for me.
It was Scarlett's startling admission that the Joint Intelligence Committee, of which he was chairman on the eve of the Iraq war, hadn't even considered the possibility that Saddam Hussein's claim to have chemical warfare capabilities was a bluff.
Sorry? After his capture, Hussein suggested that he had maintained the fiction of chemical warfare capability in order to instil fear in hostile neighbouring countries.
Had the JIC ever contemplated this likelihood, Sir John was asked?
His response was a model of Whitehall waffle: “Did the JIC understand the intensity of that ambiguity and that paradox? Um, no. I don't think, I can't quote, can't cite an example of where that was confronted as a paradox and then discussed. I can't think of anybody else who saw it in quite those terms either, and of course that is something we now understand better because it was possible to talk to him and it was possible to talk to all the people around him.”
All those JIC eggheads sitting in one room and not one of them considered this a remote possibility at the time? It beggars belief even six years on.
Hussein was the embodiment of braggadocio and you couldn't trust a word he said. Most of the British public were confronting this paradox back in 2002/3, even if the JIC wasn't.
Alastair Campbell famously described Scarlett as his “mate”. A proper “mate” would have told Sir John: “Hang on a minute, don't make a fool of yourself.” A proper mate would have warned him that the emperor Hussein might have no (biological or chemical) clothes.
Isn't that what friends are for? Who was bluffing whom? I do hope there was a conspiracy to go to war in Iraq.
The alternative scenario is almost too frightening to contemplate — that it was one gigantic cock-up by our intelligence services, who failed to ask the most elementary questions.
If Campbell is a true mate, perhaps he will salvage what is left of Scarlett's reputation by testifying to a straightforward conspiracy.
A tragic heroine trapped by her past
Cherie Blair has given a surprisingly candid interview to Tatler in which Mammon emerges as the dominant theme of her life.We are all shaped by our background, she argues. “Not having a pauper's funeral was my grandmother's utter obsession,” she said.
“I'll probably never stop worrying that I've not got enough money ... although Tony was born comfortable, his father didn't come from that and lost everything when he
was 10.”
Cherie resembles a tragic Victorian literary heroine imprisoned by her past: your heart almost bleeds.
Well, almost. It's arguably this obsession with money that has got our country in the mess it is in today.
Compare and contrast Dave Cameron's philosophy of life: “My view is very simple ... that what people are interested in is not where you come from but where you're going to, what you've got to offer the country.”
And not what the country has to offer your bank balance, he might have added.
How Shakira got to Evan
My highlight of the week was Evan Davis's interview with Colombian singer Shakira on Radio 4's Today programme.
“Women singing,” he said. “It's doing very well at the moment. If you look at the UK top 10, four single females are in there, plus Lady Gaga, plus you know, far more than men succeeding in the top 10 at the moment. What's going on? Why are women so popular at the moment?”
Shakira seemed bemused by the inane questioning and critics have since scoffed that Davis was like an embarrassing uncle trying to get down with the kids.
Surely he should stick to what he knows — the economy, the budget deficit and, er, nipple rings?
I disagree. It certainly makes for more entertaining radio. Tomorrow morning I would like to wake up to John Humphrys asking Lady Gaga about Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report.
Or better still Jim Naughtie interviewing Sir Michael Gambon about the Large Hadron Collider. Now that really would be a high-energy collision.
Scary words I love to hear
There is nothing to fear but fear itself, said Franklin Roosevelt. And now we don't even have to fear fear.
Scientists claim to have eliminated scary thoughts from the human mind in a way that could be used to treat a range of phobias.
This is welcome news for someone like myself who suffers from every phobia under the sun, from euphobia (fear of hearing good news) to pogonophobia (fear of beards).
But if we eradicate all our phobias, what an incalculable loss it will be to the English language.
