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Ten years after 9/11: The battle is for an open world, not a closed one

Friday, Sep 09, 2011 in Office of Tony Blair

VIDEO: Watch Tony Blair's interview with The Times

The transcript of an interview with Tony Blair by Philip Webster, Editor of The Times Website and former Political Editor of The Times, and Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor of The Times.

Philip Webster: Looking back, ten years on, what are your memories actually of the day and how swiftly did you realise the enormity of it and, you know, that it was going to change the world?

Tony Blair: The actual day was very strange because I was doing the TUC speech in Brighton and, you know, as ever it was always quite a difficult speech for me to make as the Labour Party leader, and I remember being told in my hotel room. Was it the Grand that we were in? Yeah – in the Grand, putting the finishing touches to the speech.

It was as ever going to be… there’d been a lot of criticism made by some of the unions. I was going to have to reply to some of the criticism. It was pretty much the standard, certainly for me, Labour-leader-goes-to-TUC type of occasion. And, usually what happens is I will speak, as I did then to… it would have been Brendan Barber, I guess – just before.

You know, I was sort of running through what the speech might be and usually Brendan would say: “well look, for goodness’ sake do you really have to say that?” and “please don’t say that” and “it would help if you say this,” and so I would always do some last minute amendments.

So I used to sit in my room, really shut everyone out and really focus on the speech, and then, you know, someone actually just came into my room and interrupted me – which in itself was very unusual for people to do just before I was about to give a speech – and said you’ve got to come and see this on the television. So I came through and I think the first plane had hit, obviously, but I don’t think the second had at that stage -

PW: Did you actually see the second one hit, yourself, on the television?

TB: I think we did, wasn’t it live? It was actually… you did. So it was clear that, you know it was clear right from the beginning that it was an attack. The prospect of it being an accident was a very momentary analysis that was swiftly displaced by the realisation that this was a terrorist attack.

And yes, I mean I had a very clear view right from the very beginning – I mean, rightly or wrongly by the way, because I think you’ve got to constantly reflect on whether this was the right judgment, but my judgment was that this completely changed the politics of global security. And it’s hard I think now, to remember back at just what a shock it was.

I mean 3,000 people – at the time actually we thought it might have been as many as 6,000 – but, OK, 3,000 people killed in a single terrorist attack on the streets of New York. I mean I think it’s hard to look back on it and think that you could ever have had a consequence that wasn’t profound and changed the face of the way the world looked at this terrorist threat at that point. And it was very obvious too that it was linked into this ideology based on a perverted view of Islam. I mean that was also pretty clear from the beginning.

PW: And how soon did you come to accept that this was going to lead to war, basically?

TB: Again, I think it was obvious right from the outset that, if it turned out to be the al-Qaeda network based in Afghanistan, that the Taleban either yielded up bin Laden and his people or there was going to be military action. And I think there was also a sense in which, you see for leaders like me there was a sense in which this had been building for some time, because you’d had other terrorist attacks; you’d had the attack on the USS Cole, you’d had the attack in Dar es Salaam, you know you’d had a steady pattern of terrorist attacks or attempted attacks. So it’s not that this came out of absolutely nowhere. On the other hand, I think now, you can see that this was part of a far deeper and broader movement than we thought at the time.

PW: I think you were strongly supported at the time for backing Bush over that action against the Taleban. Did he ask you to become his ambassador? Because I remember travelling with you virtually every mile of the 40,000 – you went round and round the world acting for Bush. Did he ask you to do that, or was that something that you felt was right to do at the time?

TB: Well I was very keen to make sure that this was seen not simply as an attack on America but on all of us, and very keen to make sure that we put together the broadest coalition because I could see that obviously what these people wanted was to say: “look, this is against America,” and therefore the response of America would be very hard, very swift, you know there was a actually a lot of pressure on President Bush at the time to take immediate action.

I mean, there were lots of people saying, you know, “you should have aircraft in the air now – September the 12th.” And we forget I think it was then some significant number of weeks later that action was taken. So for all sorts of reasons I thought it was important that we built the broadest coalition so it’s not something he particularly asked me to do but once I started to do it he was very supportive of doing it, and I was anxious all the way through to try and build as broad-based a coalition as possible.

Richard Beeston: You wrote in your book: “If I had known that a decade later we would still be fighting in Afghanistan, I would’ve been profoundly perturbed and alarmed.” And, you know, we went in, we did the easy bit I guess and I suppose possibly we misjudged the challenges of trying to put together – to rebuild – a country like Afghanistan, and defeat the forces of the Taleban, do you think that’s…

TB: Yeah, I mean I think what we didn’t realise then, but realise now, is that this was not a group of extremists – I mean, sometimes there’s a, you know you can draw analogies with extremist groups that have caused terrorist acts before. Now, nothing as terrible as this or even remotely so, but nonetheless they are, as it were, pockets of extremism, and extremists who follow a particular ideology, that take action.

I think the thing that we came to learn later is that even though the number of actual extremists was very small, the number of people who bought a certain amount of the narrative that gave rise to that extremism was worryingly large. And, the real reason why it was difficult in Afghanistan and then in Iraq – and is difficult actually all over the region of the Middle East at the moment, is that the narrative in which religion is mixed up with politics and in which the idea that “the West is inherently in conflict with us” – that ideology, that has those ideas in it, in a very toxic way, is far more widespread than we understood at the time.

And so what that means is that you can knock out – militarily – the regime, but then when you’re engaged in the process of nation building afterwards it’s not like nation building was in say the Balkans or Eastern Europe. You know, you’re nation building in circumstances where there are groups of people prepared to use terrorism and in particular suicide bombing to destroy your attempt to build a country.

So you may have the best intentions in the world in building it but they’re actually viscerally opposed to the type of nation you’re trying to build, which is an open and a democratic nation. And that’s, I think that ideology is still very much with us.

PW: Do you regret, looking back, that you – 9/11 led on to Iraq rather swiftly – that you didn’t do more to slow down the process that led to war with Iraq? Or was there no alternative to going beyond – you tried for the second resolution, you had told him eight months earlier that you’d be there in any case…

TB: Well, you know, when people talk about it being a fast process, I mean we were actually, by then, sort of 18 months on from September the 11th. And I think people forget that at the time, we didn’t know what was coming next, either.

I mean I think it’s really important to understand that, that… my view certainly was that you had to look the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons in a completely different way as a result of September 11th because, you know, as I’ve constantly said, the calculus of risk had changed completely.

Because it’s perfectly obvious, if these groups were able to access – and it’s still the case today – if they are able to access those weapons they will use them. I mean, there’s not much doubt about that. So, you know, you had, following 9/11 and following that judgment, you then had to take a completely different attitude to this subject to do with WMD [weapons of mass destruction].

You know, you had Iran, you had North Korea, you had Libya, you had Iraq. In respect of Iraq, you had the outstanding UN resolutions and the fact that they had used them. So, you know really I think in how we then developed the strategy to deal with this, you know, we believed at the time that at any point, you might… you might find you were hit again.

PW: Would you have been prepared to take Britain to war if you had known then what you know now, i.e. there were no WMD – you used that as the basis for the UN approach – could you have done it without, could you possibly have led Britain to war in those circumstances?

[pause]

TB: Well, you know, I’ve been over this a thousand times. The reason was the breach of the UN resolutions – he was in breach of them – look you know I take the view he was a threat, but in essence the reason why it became very tough was really not to do with Saddam, it was to do with what happened afterwards and likewise with the fall of the Taleban in Afghanistan.

I mean the truth is what got really difficult, far more difficult than anyone imagined, was when you got external factors joining up with internal factors to try and cause chaos and instability; by use of terrorism, by suicide bombers, by, you know, roadside bombs and, you know, still the question in my mind is “well, if you knew they were going to do these things, is it worth the fight?” and my answer to that is, unless you‘re prepared to give in to that, then it is because both in respect of Afghanistan and in respect of Iraq the fact is the people did want a democratic form of government and they do – so why shouldn’t they have it?

PW: Were you ever given a satisfactory explanation as to why the intelligence did get it so wrong?

TB: Yeah, I mean I think the explanation’s there in the Iraq Survey Group report, which is that he retained the intention and the knowhow to reconstitute it, and therefore what was coming out of the regime was not a, you know, a genuine decision that he was giving it up.

RB: Do you think we’ve been slow to adapt to some of the arguably more successful aspects of counter-terrorism which is the American use of drones, which has been controversial on one level but also highly effective in degrading al-Qaeda in Pakistan and also leading really to the killing of Osama bin Laden and now the new type of interventionism that we’ve seen in Libya where it’s hands-off, it’s all signed, sealed and delivered, legal, it’s a much more…

TB: Well we are, obviously, learning as we’re going- that’s true, we learning in security terms, political terms – hopefully in nation-building terms as well. But it’s still very tough because the security measures in the end, I mean, are necessary but they’re not the answer.

You know, the answer is you’ve got to deal with and diminish and undercut this narrative that still means that even as you are attacking these people they’re trying to find new recruits and come after you again. So in one sense I think yeah – of course you’re learning, I mean in respect of Libya you had a situation where people could rise up and take on the regime and we were able to come in in support of them, and the truth is people tried to rise up in respect to Saddam back in the early 90s and large numbers of them were killed.

So, you know I think the real thing now is that the mood of the times is different. I think the Arab Spring has changed people’s perceptions of the willingness of countries – Muslim countries and other countries in the region – to move towards democracy.

I think it’s now clear they do actually want it but, you know, how you then construct the institutions of statehood, that is, that’s a challenge which we’ve found incredibly difficult in Afghanistan and in Iraq and we’ve got to hope that it will be easier in the circumstances of Libya where I think and hope you will have – at least what you won’t have there I don’t think is external players trying to cause difficulty.

So in Iraq I mean one of the main problems has been the continued intervention of Iran, and likewise in Afghanistan. So I think, you know, my sense of this is that we’re still in the middle of what is a long, drawn-out struggle in which those countries that are failed states escape from the legacy of corrupt politics, tribalism and a perversion of religion.

Now, in the end, my view is we’re still right to be there and be part of it – that’s why I supported the action in Libya I think it was the right thing to do and I think, actually the leaders of our country and France, particularly, showed a lot of leadership on that.

You know, when you look back to 9/11, I think the single biggest difference in my perception now and then is to realise that this is a deep thing – it’s not something, you know, back then you had the hope that if you knocked out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, took out the Taleban, you know, you sent a strong signal by the removal of Saddam, you replace it with a democratic regime in Iraq so that everyone knows, look here, here are the rules by which the international community is playing.

I think that view, which is that we could have a relatively short and benign period of conflict leading to regime changes in those countries that would not cooperate with the principles of the international community, but then transition to democracy – I mean I think that is now displaced by a realisation that it is going to be a long hard struggle. Doesn’t make it any less worthwhile in fact, it makes it in many ways more important that we engage in it, but it’s a long struggle and that struggle goes on, you know – we’re not out of this yet.

PW: So the threat is a lot bigger than you even realised then?

TB: Yeah, the threat is deeper and bigger than we realised because it isn’t just about isolated pockets of extremism. It is an ideology with a movement and with a narrative, and you’ve got to undercut that narrative and that ideology if you want to destroy the movement.

I mean, that’s the reason why for example the foundation I’ve got was about religious interfaith – I think you’ve got to deal with the religious aspects of this. I mean, we constantly underestimate the degree to which many people in those countries are supremely motivated by their religious belief. And, you know, it’s important we understand that, we deal with it and we are creating the platforms in which people of different faiths and different beliefs can come together and learn from each other, learn to live with each other and coexist peacefully.

But you know we’re a long way out of this, from getting out of this, I think. Now, that’s not to say we haven’t made significant advances because I think we have, you know, and personally I think we’re a lot better off in Afghanistan and Iraq than we would’ve been if we’d still got those regimes in charge but now we’ve got to use the focus of the Arab Spring to try and help bring about lasting and true democratic change.

RB: Do you think we’re pulling out of Afghanistan too precipitously, in setting deadlines and…

TB: I think that any pulling out should be governed by getting the job done. Now that is what the political leadership have said and I’m content to take their assurances on it but it think that is important.

PW: Are you surprised that Obama seems to have been taking a bit of a backseat over the Arab Spring and particularly Libya, has that come as a surprise to you?

TB: No, I think – look America has put an enormous amount of commitment and effort into defeating these forces of extremism. I think it’s right that Britain and France took the lead and we did it well I think, you know you’d have to say we’ve shown effective leadership. But America also had assets in this and is going to be heavily involved in the reconstruction effort, but you know America is still bearing the brunt in Afghanistan and indeed in Iraq.

PW: Talking about the threat still being there, in front of Chilcot in January you warned – in quite graphic terms – of the dangers of Iran, and said Iran had to be met with determination and if necessary force. Is that something you stand by still?

TB: Yes, I mean the threat Iran poses to the stability of the region is immense. If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons capability it would destabilise the region very, very badly and they continue to support groups that are engaged with terrorism, and the forces of reaction. And I mean they continue to do that even now – I mean even now in Iraq they’re still interfering where they can and as much as they can. And, you know, they need, you know, that’s what I’ve said. I think regime change in Tehran would immediately make me significantly more optimistic about the whole of the region.

PW: And what about Syria? David Cameron this morning, who sounded a bit like Tony Blair, was saying that he was frustrated by the inability of the international community to do more against Syria. I mean what do you think about Syria? Is that an issue that could possibly have been dealt with in the Libya way?

TB: I don’t think there was the buy-in for that. But I do think we’ve got to be very clear. I mean Assad is not going to lead the programme of change in Syria now, that’s obvious, and what we’ve got to realise, as a world, is that the way the world is changing is that people are no longer prepared to accept that you have a small clique of people who try and run a country for their own purposes when that country has got every opportunity, and every possibility, of adopting a democratic system of government. So in the end I think Assad will go and I think the international community should do everything it can now to hasten that, because he’s shown he’s not capable of reform.

PW: With military support?

TB: As I say I just don’t think there’s the support for that, and there’s no point in making threats that you don’t intend to fulfil.

RB: But do you think his position will become untenable?

TB: I think his position is untenable. I think the, I mean I was saying even two or three months ago if he genuinely showed that he was prepared to lead a process of reform, then, you know, I would give him the chance to make the evolution work. I mean, by the way, in respect of the Arab Spring, I mean I’m a supporter of evolution, in preference to revolution, if evolution is attainable.

The truth is it wasn’t really in Libya and the trouble is if you’re Assad in Syria and you’re going to lead a process of evolutionary change you’re going to have to accept that you won’t remain in power. Because there’s absolutely no way that were there a legitimate form of government there, he would end up as the president. So the choice for Assad is really, is he big enough to say: “ok, I accept this will mean that I will go but I am nonetheless going to lead this country on this process of change.” But there is no process of change that leaves him intact and therefore leaving him intact means no process of change, do you see what I mean?

RB: And you think he’s being kept in there by his own volition or people around him wanting him to..?

TB: I honestly don’t know. I also think one other thing by the way, which is why I think it’s important to have this process of evolution, if you can attain it, is that, you know, this is a complicated region now, right?

I think we have a far greater understanding of the religious, the tribal influences, the various factors and its politics has got a long way to mature into proper democratic politics and one of the things I think is really important, especially in the context of Egypt, is that Democracy is not just about the right to vote in and out your government, you know, it’s about freedom of expression, a free media, it’s actually about open markets, it’s about the rule of law – it’s about an open attitude of mind.

And, democracy doesn’t work unless it comes with those attributes and that’s why I think this does give us an enormous opportunity, in the West, to partner those countries on a process of change where we are in a sense supporting and developing the institutions of democracy necessary to sustain it.

And if that happens, by the way, the threat that surfaced in 9/11, that is the way we will deal with it. You know ultimately the answer to the threat posed by 9/11 is democracy and freedom and not just freedom of expression but that open attitude of mind that leads to freedom of religion, that leads to a concept of the world in which people coexist peacefully with each other.

And, you know, from 9/11 onwards we were focused on the security measures that we had to take and the military action that followed from that but there is no doubt at all that if you want to win this struggle, you’re going to have to win it, hearts and minds, as well as through military measures.

PW: Just a personal one: accepting that you obviously still maintain that you were right about Iraq, do you accept what I think most political commentators would say, is that it certainly did probably shorten your career as Prime Minister and possibly reduce what you were able to do in government; led to a reduction in your popularity – you were riding high after 2001 – I mean, do you accept that that was the cost to you personally of Iraq?

TB: Yeah but I don’t think that the cost to me personally matters one way or another, frankly. I mean look – what’s necessary when we’re debating 9/11 is just to go back to the day and understand – just re-fix our minds on that day, its consequences and the fact that we now know, about these people, that if they could kill 30,00 or 300,000 not 3,000, they would. Now that is what motivated people like me to take the view that I did; that the world had changed, that we had to take an emphatically different view of this threat than we had before. And you take those decisions as a prime minister and you stand by them or you fall by them, and that’s – that’s the way it is. And that’s the job by the way, and it’s a privilege to do it.

PW: Do you actually think it diminished you, in the eyes of the British people?

TB: Look, there are people who agree with me and people who disagree with me. You know, that’s politics today. And by the way ten years is a long time, anyway. [laughs]

PW: When did you last speak to George Bush?

TB: Not so long ago, I mean we keep in touch. For sure.

PW: And is he engaged in what’s going on now?

TB: Well you’d better ask him that rather than me, I think i can’t let me answer for him.

PW: And finally, I mean, given the massive loss of lives, in Iraq and Afghanistan, would you still maintain that the response to 9/11 and everything that followed was worth it?

TB: Do I think we would have to have acted after 9/11? Yes. And the thing to realise is that the vast majority of those that have died died as a result of the action of terrorists motivated by the same ideology that gave rise to 9/11. And I do not favour giving in or conceding to these people in any way.

So that’s why it’s difficult for me to say, if you take the numbers of people who died in Iraq – and by the way far less than those who died under Saddam – the vast bulk of them weren’t killed by British troops or American troops, they were killed by terrorists. So the answer to that is to stand up to them, in my view, and I think some people may say well, you know: “if they’re prepared to create all this mayhem, that means you don’t do it”.

But I think that’s a very tough thing to say, for the people of those countries, who at least have the chance to build themselves now in a way they didn’t. You know, and I think sometimes people should just go back and analyse what Afghanistan or Iraq were like under the Taleban and Saddam and if you talk to the people in those countries, some of them will say: “well at least we had some form of stability under the authoritarian nature of the regime”, but the vast majority would say: “look, we defeated the dictatorships, now we’re going to defeat the terrorists. But why shouldn’t we have the same things that you guys have” and the interesting thing about the Arab Spring is that it’s destroyed the myth that somehow people in those countries don’t want freedom, don’t want democracy – they do.

PW: You praised Cameron over Libya, do you think he would’ve stood up to 9/11 and everything else that…

TB: Phil – how long’ve you been doing this job? [all laugh]

RB: Do you think that the Arab Spring had any of its roots in what happened in Iraq and elsewhere?

TB: I think that what was clear to people in the Middle East, because obviously I’d been out there a lot even before the Arab Spring, it was clear to people there that they could have democracy. But obviously people, at the same time, want to try and bring it about in a way that doesn’t lead to all the problems that we had.

So, you know, yeah – I think it definitely had an impact both ways, as it were, which is perfectly sensible. So people have wanted to learn the lessons of it but at the same time I think, you know people have also seen that people in Iraq and have been prepared to – actually still today – fight pretty hard to get it.

But you, know I, don’t, you know, people often ask me: “do you think Iraq was important for the Arab Spring or not?” I think it’s a question I’ll let the historians debate.

PW: You mentioned the threat being bigger – sorry last question, really, last one, promise – in a couple of sentences, where is the threat now?

TB: The threat’s still from the same ideology and the same narrative, which is based on a perverted view of religion and which regards cultures and faiths as in fundamental conflict with each other. And there are two ways of life in the world today, this is why I say that the big divide in politics today is not so much left versus right as much as open versus closed.

And these people, you know, their view of the process of globalisation – and they’re very adept at using its tools by the way – they regard that as basically wrong, and contrary to their belief system, and they’ll fight very hard against us who want an open attitude of mind, and that’s the battle. Now I believe we will win it but it’s going to take time, and as I say, the struggle goes on, for sure.