September 2004

“I am afraid that this concentration of power in No 10 and decision-making by people who do not consult and are not held accountable explains the pattern of poor policy decisions in Blair's second term—from foundation hospitals to top-up fees and, most spectacularly, on Iraq.”

“But we do know what those trying to stop [the terrorists] are like. Stolid, bored, humourless and a few scones short of the full tea-shop: and underpaid, and quietly afraid, both of terrorists and of failure: and they will be looking the wrong way, and stopping the wrong people, and getting it, generally, wrong—and all that, I think, is scary.”

“The president really has no credibility at this point. He has no credibility with foreign leaders who hear him come before them and talk as if everything is going well.”

“The idea that this [the Iraq adventure] is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong.”

“[The Iraqi government has] a high proportion of formerly exiled politicians in the cabinet and a prime minister closely associated with the intelligence arms of both the British and American governments.”