Inquiry hots up as Campbell appears

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By Peter Biles BBC world affairs correspondent

Alastair Campbell was unapologetic about the decisions taken

At 6am last Tuesday, with the temperature close to zero celsius, we found ourselves outside the QEII Centre in London preparing for the arrival of Alastair Campbell at the Iraq Inquiry.

Tony Blair's former communications director and chief spin-doctor was the most high-profile figure to give evidence so far.

It was clear there was a huge amount of public interest. People began queuing before sunrise, and anti-war protestors appeared. It felt like day one of the Inquiry all over again.

No stranger to a frenzied media scrum, Alastair Campbell arrived an hour ahead of time, sweeping up in a silver limousine.

Glare of publicity

He made no attempt to avoid the glare of publicity as members of the intelligence community have done when summoned to the Inquiry.

Inside, the hearing got off to a prickly start as Sir Roderic Lyne, leading the questioning, quizzed Mr Campbell on his role in the Blair government.

"You said in your diary you weren't a traditional communications director. You have said that you were there to do whatever the prime minister asked you to do. Would that be accurate?" Sir Roderic asked.

Displaying a whiff of irritation, Mr Campbell replied: "Look, if he asked me to jump off a building, I wouldn't have done it".

INQUIRY TIMELINE January-February: Tony Blair, Jack Straw and other politicians to appear before the panel March: Inquiry to adjourn ahead of the general election campaignJuly-August: Inquiry expected to resume with Gordon Brown and David Miliband among those appearingReport set to be published in late 2010 or early 2011 <a class="" href="/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8453116.stm">Campbell defends Iraq war dossier</a> <a class="" href="/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7312757.stm">Q&A: Iraq war inquiry</a>

They soon got down to the real business of Iraq.

Alastair Campbell had unprecedented access to the inner workings of government and to the most confidential meetings.

We learnt that the then Chancellor Gordon Brown was part of "the private circle of consultations" on Iraq, and that he was one of the key ministers to whom Tony Blair spoke regularly.

Mr Campbell also revealed that Tony Blair wrote to President George W Bush in 2002, saying that "Britain would be there" to support Washington militarily, if the diplomatic efforts on Iraq failed.

The hearing rolled on into an impromptu afternoon session.

Robust defence

The questioning by the members of Sir John Chilcot's committee was noticeably tougher than it has been, especially from Sir Roderic Lyne and Sir Lawrence Freedman. Sir John Chilcot, himself, chose to take a back seat on this occasion.

Alastair Campbell was not unduly combative, but typically robust. There were certainly no regrets or apologies. He defended the government's controversial 2002 dossier to the hilt, he played down the importance of the 45-minutes claim on weapons of mass destruction and he denied "sexing up" the intelligence.

Disingenuously, he also claimed not to be worried or obsessed about newspaper headlines.

All in all, it amounted to a trenchant defence of Mr Blair's premiership and the decision to invade Iraq. However, Mr Campbell admitted that one of his doubts at the time had been whether Tony Blair would survive politically.

Observers were agreed that Mr Campbell's appearance had carefully paved the way for Tony Blair's own evidence which is to be heard either in the last week of January or the first week of February. The precise date is still to be confirmed.

The Inquiry committee emerged this week with reputation in tact. They must have known from the outset however, that they were unlikely to extract any genuinely new information from Alastair Campbell.

Decision-making style

The evidence on Wednesday given by Lord Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary, was far more revealing.

He disclosed that the Blair cabinet never had a formal debate when the then Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, presented his legal advice on the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

"I think what they (the cabinet) needed was 'yes' or 'no' and that's what they got", he said.

He gave some additional insight into the way in which Tony Blair's cabinet operated. Traditional structures were not used.

"They were bypassed and decisions were being taken in other ways", he said. "Margaret Thatcher worked more in cabinet committees than Tony Blair did".

Lord Turnbull acknowledged that "the culture of challenge" had been on the decline inside the Blair administration. Arguments took place "elsewhere", he explained.

But this, he thought, was "a poorer way of making decisions"

After six weeks of public hearings, the first female witness was called to give evidence. Dr Nemat Shafik, the permanent secretary of the Department for International Development (DFID) from 2008, told the Inquiry that DFID had deployed a lot more women in Iraq than other government departments.

On the whole, they were younger, although not necessarily more junior.

"I think our staff were pretty feisty and pretty good at getting heard", Ms Shafik suggested.

After earlier evidence, notably from the military, that was critical of DFID personnel in 2003, it was refreshing to hear praise for the department's work during this later period in Iraq.