Transcripts For CSPAN2 Capital News Today 20110122

and the end. if you actually track his telegram, they occasionally fact strongly. when he leaves in 2004 he is optimistic, not pessimistic. and interesting piece of evidence was given to general debt and who said when he went out in 2005 he went out on the basis that things would be in the right direction. two years after we were in there. any planning problems or bureaucracy issues that we could have resolved. the problem he goes on to say, terms of duty straddled that period, suddenly it slipped and it slipped not because we weren't taking the right decisions back home but because the enemy we ended up finding which was backed by iran were causing us trouble. >> you are very ambitious. if you look at the question of policeing green stalk, said was he wanted to do quickly, try to do it by the end of 2003 if you can. we looked at each other but decided we could do anything to help if we realized it. the mission was high. it was never backed up with a proper analysis of the resources and capabilities in staffing. >> as far as resources were concerned that wasn't the issue being raised. if someone said to me i have a great plan but the resources i would say you have them. you end up -- the thing about military and civilian if you're looking at a situation when you are in the civilian phase because the military phase is very expensive. the money we are talking about, in large sums of money in government terms hundreds of millions. when you talk about military you are talking billions. i saw that evidence again, the evidence is being given that these people we -- civil policeing, i can speak to this in my responsibility in palestine, civil policeing is a vital part of the picture more so than we realized at the time and i would serve only say that going into any such situation in the future you have to have a fully and comprehensively worked out plan for that because you will certainly find the police resources that are there are corrupt or useless. >> your statement you referred to the challenge of delivery. do you feel the government machine was up to u.s. aspirations? >> i think they were up to liberate it. and they were delivering it. the officials we sent out and people working for us were fantastic people. they were amazingly committed people. the trouble was the security situation basically dislocated the reconstruction effort and occasionally through this you get a theme which is once you move faster on reconstruction you might have got the same security problem. i would really dispute that. the thing about these terrorist activities they were directed at stopping the progress. they were not expression of frustration at the progress. we repair the electricity, these people would blow them up. they try to stop the oil production. even today, many improvements in iraq today but this terrorism continues. the americans have drawn down, the british are out. it carried on because the purpose of this has nothing to do with standing up for iraq. it has to do with preventing iraq getting on its feet as up functioning democracy. that is why it is still important today for decent people in iraq and they are the majority to succeed. >> to move on to consultation, and occupying power. in your statement, a formal memorandum, quickly superseded by arrangements agreed to the meeting in april of 2003 in hillsborough. levels between the u.s. and u.s. government. in our reading we could find no reference to these arrangements. furthermore there's clear evidence, colleagues and officials expressing frustration to the lack of u.s. confrontation two months after hillsborough. there are many complaints we are being sidelined at the us soyuz level. why did these concerns persist? >> in the end of a thing about hillsborough we are backed into another un situation. that was the point of my -- the issue between the two of us at hillsborough was the united nations role. america didn't want to a un in. we were clear that they had to be in. in essence, iraq couldn't be run by the un and the u.s. didn't want the lead role but they had to have an important role and this was raised with president bush and resolved. we also had an issue on the peace process because i was very determined -- i don't remember when the road map was published but this is to do with the middle east peace process and i was fixed on that. on the consultation with the americans, there were and always will be -- you won't get a situation where everyone is happy with everyone but one of the reasons i was sending people of the caliber of john and jeremy, a top-level person in there making sure is things transmit that we make our views known. sometimes that did not happen and there is a frustration about that. given the disparity of the assets that were deployed and down in the south we were running our own show. it would be a little harsh to say the -- they would certainly disagree with that. >> when you talk about individuals are we putting too much on this problem without getting the relationship right? we were ultimately join to this possibility. >> what the americans would say is if they did. you asked whether the particular individual -- this is all about individuals. when someone like john -- i would have complete confidence. >> putting too much premium on individuals without a framework in which to work and having a strategy. >> what i was going to say is you can't predict all these situations. in the end, you could have agreed with some formal memorandum. that would not have been what made it work. the relationship with the president, jack's relationship and so on, constantly -- david manning and condoleezza rice had a close working relationship. they were speaking to each other several times a day. you see from various notes, the key thing was to have someone like john alongside ambassador brenner because i form clear views of ambassador bremer when i missed him, he was a tough-minded person. he was someone who knew his own mind. i wanted a strong person alongside him. >> the united nations security council resolution, occupying -- the ground it occupied in iraq, it was for all iraq. hy was fully aware of the responsibility. and my colleagues. is also correct that the joint occupying power which share the responsibility, was an effective responsibility for implementation in the u.s.. together with the u.s. which constitutes the occupying power in the un resolution. the u.s. would provide a minimum amount, how are they going to exercise its obligations? >> to make sure it got alongside the decisionmaking process. this is the issue weather we were responsible for the south or americans responsible for the rest or joined occupying power. there was an ad hoc committee meeting -- it was going to be to our advantage to make sure we join partners with the u.s. because that gave us the lock in baghdad, and this is a totally satisfactory way of resolving it. this is a colorful character. effectively handle large amounts of american money and resources. put this in perspective. with more than the whole of what is to the south. people say will be americans cannot really treating does properly, i don't think that is correct. you will get. -- glitches and difficulties. one thing to say about ambassador bremer, he has given you a statement. the fact is she is there, iraq was on an upward path. it was in later times that we got into the difficulties. there's a lot of debate about -- you will have heard a lot of evidence on that. i did not get the impression he was refusing to discuss with the british. we had working along the side -- >> why did he write to you on the seventh of april and said colleagues focus strongly that the u.s. must not be allowed to take this for granted otherwise, sharing responsibility, to influence them. >> absolutely right which is why we would be pushing the whole time but that is a struggle you expect to have. you will be in a situation where you are working alongside the u.s.. i would imagine that -- i imagine the same thing would happen in afghanistan. passing on to me from colleagues, get on to your partner bush and say we have to be properly involved in this. after i came back from iraq on the 20 ninth i made sure i met president bush, gave a pretty clear situation of what was happening -- >> a number have, at from the issues. were you confident that this would be translated into action on the ground? it had not rest on that channel of communication. >> these things are only as effective as the top decisionmakers and circumstances where they are not actually on the ground. you have to have in parallel to that, to go alongside the americans you have to have people who are there on the spot because whenever president bush and i agree, and the american system, if anyone ever dealt with it, three different judges it is a vast behemoths. you need to make sure messages are getting to the ground level as well as the top level. >> how confident were you that what you said to president bush was actually percolating down to the ground? >> they did take action. you are seeing from what happened with ambassador bremer, he got moving pretty quickly. he did start to turn things around. was it difficult in the first bit of transition? if it was, the americans in their own analysis are saying this should be done differently. jerry brown would say that as well. i can say there are things where i was ringing -- and president bush wasn't doing anything. when i met him i went through item by item the things that had to happen and when i went to him his system was completely resistant to this, to get the you and into iraq they did come and. important to wonder stand this and it comes down to some of the evidence there. our contact was very clear. the suggestions -- with different objectives moving from the different stages of this transition. it was absolutely there. we wanted to go from coalition to provisional of 40, iraauthor governing council. the purpose -- >> about to get to how effective the communication was. if there was a white house conversation the limit to how many issues can be raised, a distinct wet, the result. >> i would accept that completely. when you have big issues, you and coming in with big issues, if you get the you and in this situation the great advantage is it has a whole set of infrastructures to deal with things like developments, the situation now if you take the un out of gaza there would be very little there. so the un has a huge infrastructure of capacity. to bring the un and important goal, pretty cool for this, and exceptional leader and person, the issue is what happened -- they killed him and many of his staff in 2003. one thing that is important to recognize, without the un authority you don't have the consensus among the population. the people we were fighting in iraq didn't care about the un. they wanted the un now, any of these questions, it is true, you can resolve everything in a telephone conversation, but the big ticket items with president bush, as far as i know, action was falling from that. >> the question of capacity, in your memoirs, you were depending on a functioning civil service with structure of government -- given that iraq for decades had been under brutal and corrupt tyrants, in two debilitating wars and further debilitated by 12 years of sanctions, had this been removed by a third war, it is prudent to plan on the assumption of degraded apparatus. >> when you look back on this with hindsight you can say no. all i say to you is that the time there was quite a lot of work on this and what is interesting, i came across the other day when preparing for the inquiry, coffee and on at a press conference in april of 2008, he referred to a functioning iraqi civil service. the americans and ourselves were of the view that because of the nature of this regime there must be a pretty good functioning civil service taking advice as well from people who had recently left iraq. one of the lessons of this undoubtedly is that in any situation where you are removing an oppressive and brutal regimes assume the worst. assume that as a result of that brutality, what you may have is a hard security apparatus that actually not a governing bureaucracy. that weather resolvable problem. if we went into a security situation where we have internal elements, a certain amount of criminality, we could have managed that people fairly easily. >> that was your information. you declassified a letter, and he wanted some information. >> what actually happened, in early april of 2003. when we were in there, up to the conflict, we are in iraq. we were not going to be relying on the ground. what became very apparent very quickly, made about a stake of the iraqi was not correct. on >> on the nineteenth of february, tumwater breakdown, what were the likely consequences going to be? >> you can pick out these things, i should think -- the intelligence that al qaeda sent into iraq. it was a rather different from what we came to but this was the benefit of hindsight. the overall impression of bits of information this wasn't my conclusion -- both ours and the americans and, the same conclusions reached by the un -- a collapsed government. i want to emphasize it would have been a problem -- >> let me look briefly in to the insurgency, to you -- let me ask about the -- what we anticipated. the meetings with the chiefs of staff on the fifteenth of january in 2003 two months before -- the risk of serious violence, two particular phrases, between the share of populations that were irretrievably fractured. can you tell us what you did to make sure this was to be addressed? >> there was a real worry about that. what we did to address it was to make sure that as soon as possible we make sure governing council, that was formed very quickly. the kurds were all represented on it. that was an issue. the fighting did not start until 2006 after the mosque was bombed to create such sectarianism. people were prepared to deal with that and we did. in late may of 2003, actually describes because of the easing of the security situation, troops were engaged more in reconstruction. we followed these as we predicted down south but not to give us concern, very quickly, we were able to overcome that. the problem of security, it is not what took place and most people thought that most of the intelligence was more of a problem than you are facing in iraq. >> you say in your book that iraq is looking forward to 2005/2006, was a battle against a general insurgency. the situation would have been manageable, weather or not several insurgency's happening in parallel. >> when former regime elements affect cities who were operating here and in the end, it was so important. i am not suggesting that wasn't the internal problem. what i am suggesting is what gave it a completely different complexion, and let me explain that. the thing about the bombing campaign, tabor the kind of spectaculars in 2003. obama of the un headquarters, it was a massive moment. killing the people trying to get the economy on its feet. without hawkeye it would not be a problem but thousands died. [talking over each other] >> the thing about this is -- >> two or three points quickly, time is running along. on al qaeda, section from iran, we argued it could be -- in northern iraq. i wonder if this whole area which on reflection you feel the advice given to you, by experts of different kinds, and they did make it clear before the invasion that the threat from al qaeda will increase at the onset of any military action with western interests. probably rather understated, given we have by this time been engaged with the united states, in global war on terror, occupying an islamic country, should defeat experts anticipate -- i am wary of fat. why didn't they tell you that? more strongly? >> i don't think anyone predicted way it came to be. it may be different from others. they did an extremely good job with it. the way of looking at this, this is also in the difference point of view, someone like me how to deal with those. it was fairly prevalent at the time. it is an alien impressment. .. that view is shared by many people today. my view is actually different from that. i think the numbers of people engaged in terrorism or become suicide bombers is very, veryhel limited. but i think the global ideologies that gives rise to dr this extremism has far deeper te roots and i now in the middle east of the time now and it's the same issue everywhere.p -- t it comes up -- it doesn't always come up and issues to deal with terrorism or violence, it is about modernization, attitudes of the west and its deep. a it's a lot deeper, and so what happens when you've got al qaeda coming into this attrition ist that it was more than just a few terrorists, it was backed with h the ability to push and a theology that said the west is fundamentally hostile to islam and that's why we have to wheats war against these people and the leaders.ogy now that a theology in terms ofe how it results in violence witho very few people. that - about islam and the west of life herewe has a greater reh the and we like to accept whicho is why the problem is not th confined to one area of the world today.d, of coursethey >> you rightly say the can into this situation and of course the can into a situation that was very feudal ground for them. we've heard from many witnesses a picture in which during and ca after the campaign the situation in inside iraq became very chaotic losing sight almost immediately. the invading and occupying forces were not able to control law and order even arms dumps were not guarded. we had, of course, dismantled the regime, self-evidently, but we had in the course of doing that, we went on to dismantle much of the public service through debaathification. we disbanded the army. much of it had melted away, we could have brought a lot of it back. we didn't. as a result of what was already a fragile and unstable country, a power vacuum developed. and in that situation according to this line of evidence that we've had, essentially, what happened was an internal and can intercommonnal struggle for power and resources which involved many different groups. the team that subsequently analyzed this for general petraeus and general odierno identified nine drivers of instability, one of which was al-qaeda, but essentially it was an internal conflict which al-qaeda came into. and what i suppose concerns us is whether given what was known at the time -- as you rightly say, we know more about it now -- this should not have been factored in more into the planning and preparations so that enough resources were there on the ground, they'd have been predominantly american but british too, to prevent that power vacuum developing in this very chaotic, early situation. that was where our preparations went wrong. >> yeah. there's something in that, but i think you can make far too much of it. yes, of course, i mean, again, the americans have accepted they probably should have had more and different troops even. for the aftermath. and one of the lessons of this, undoubtedly, is what you required by way of fighting the war is quite different than what is required by way afterwards. that i fully accept. but i think, you see, because this really does matter as a lesson. i don't think that al-qaeda stepped into a power vacuum. you know, if you take pakistan today -- and after all, there'll be more people killed terrorism in pakistan in 2010 than i think either iraq or afghanistan. you've got a perfectly well-functioning -- you can't say that's not a well functioning state, security services and everything. you've got people who are prepared, suicide bombing, to destabilize a country, they don't need a power vacuum. they simply need people who are prepared to go and blow themselves up in a street market. and when that happens, you destabilize the country, and that's the purpose of it. that's why it's such a straightening -- frightening phenomenon. and that's what these people do. and they do it, i think, all over. >> i think nobody's disputing how unpleasant or ruthless al-qaeda are or the trouble they're creating in pakistan. but, of course, the majority of the people who made iraq virtually unmanageable were iraqis. they were internal. and they came from different groups, not all of the extremists were al-qaeda by any means. in fact, almost every group in the struggle for power had extremist elements in it and, indeed, still does today as we see from the pattern of continuing terrorism that goes on. al-qaeda became a bigger factor after a while, but the initial phase was surely important be, too, wasn't it? >> the initial phase was important, but, you see, what happens, and this is why it's so important be to get this right because otherwise we will go back into it. my view is in any situation where your going to -- you're going to engage and have to engage in nation building where this islamist extremism is a factor, whatever you think and whatever kind of planning you do you're going to be in for a hard, relentless struggle because that's the nature of it. and, you see, it's correct that there was this power vacuum that was there. but actually -- and that's why i referred you to the general dutton's evidence earlier. 2005 iraq was getting there because, let's be clear, whatever these extremist groups were doing, the majority of iraqis were coming out and voting in their elections. they were in favor, indeed, still are today. i mean, i spoke to minister allawi who won the most seats in the recent iraq election the other day, and he said to me, look, it's very challenging, but there's hope in this country today. we defeated saddam, we will defeat the terrorists in the end, and your people and forces should be proud of what they've done. these groups in 2004 and 2005, yes, there was struggle and fighting. but in the first half of 2004 there were 30 suicide attacks. first half of 2005 there were 200. now, that's way past these early teething issues to deal with bureaucracy and problems that we had, the power vacuum and so on. this, by now, is a deliberate attempt to destabilize the country. and the point i would make to you about al-qaeda is this: these other groups that were fighting and doing things, i'm not minimizing the importance, but the thing that made it toughest for all of us and toughest particularly with public opinion because we were having to try and keep our public opinion for a long struggle here, and i'm afraid this is what these groups have learned from their experience in afghanistan and iraq is that these, a, if you do these spectacular, ghastly suicide bombings, you create an image of a country in chaos. so it's not just the numbers that you kill, it's the image you portray. and secondly, with the roadside bombs, the ieds, the efps and so on -- this is where the iranian part comes in -- you can aim it at the soldiers of the countries coming in, and the country providing those forces becomes demoralized by this. so i really do believe this is a fundamental point here. >> yeah. i -- nobody, i think, has or would question that we went over that at e enormous length last year, and we've covered it elsewhere. and we're now, unfortunately, short of time. i mean, the important point is, really, how do we counter it in a specific situation like iraq, or how do we minimize the chance of it growing up? did we have enough troops there ourselves? we've heard from general sharif that he was only able to deploy in the really bad time in basra 200 troops onto the streets of the city. i'm sor rewe haven't got a chance -- >> we need more forces, i would have been -- >> i'm agreeing with you on the importance of al-qaeda and the need for further thought on it which i, is obviously a lesson. can i just ask two very quick questions on iran because we then have to move on because, again, iran you've highlighted as part of the problem. again, the jic, as you said earlier in the declassified report of the 19th of february, told you that iran was unlikely to be aggressive although they'd also warned that iran would try to meddle in iraq, would want to insure a leading role for its proteges, would want to minimize the size and duration of a u.s. presence post-saddam, had interests throughout iraq and might pursue them in the south through armchair groups all of which turned out to be fairly accurate but, again, perhaps to a degree unstated. >> yeah, look, there were many comments in that that basically said, look, iran is not going to take an aggressive posture. >> that's exactly what you said earlier and what i said and what it says, and it also talked about active neutrality. again, my question to you is to what ec tent should the advice to you about this been better be given that it's no surprise to anybody that the iranians do not like the usa and u.k.? and we're not likely to share our object i haves, and particularly we're not likely to welcome a democratic state which we were trying to create being installed in iraq with the help of the americans and the british? so shouldn't the jic, shouldn't other advisers have worked on a rather more pessimistic assumption, that iraq was going to seek to try to interfere with our success rather than cooperate with it or preserve a neutral stance towards it? the if i can just have a fairly short answer on that because, again, we covered quite a lot of this last year. >> you might say with hindsight, yes. i think at the time people didn't think that, and, you know, we had been engaging with iran over this. we'd been engaging with the new sanctions, debate and so on and, no, i think we -- and this brings me to my point. because you made a point earlier that, you see, i also think needs amendment. how do you deal with al-qaeda? you can't deal with them unless you deal with the pigger picture -- bigger picture which includes iran. that's my view. because i don't think this is -- i think iran took a strategic decision and has now gone down a path of where it believes that it is an existential threat to the maintenance of this theocracy to have progress and modernization happening in that region. >> well, that neatly brings me to my positively final question which is that one of the truck drivers of of the -- drivers of the decision to deal with saddam and iraq as we've heard from, again, numerous witnesses was the hope that this would send a very powerful signal to nations like, well, particularly iran and north korea that we're trying to develop nuclear -- that were trying to develop nuclear weapons. of course, contacts with libya were already underway and led to a success in the autumn of 2003. but iran with north korea was a country of highest concern, and it's a country of even higher concern now for exactly the reasons you've given. so was the effect of the action that we took in iraq at least with regard to nuclear proliferation the reverse nuclear proliferation in iran, the reverse of what we'd intended? is that how it's actually turned out? >> no. i don't think so. >> you mean it's deterred iran? >> no the. i think to begin with there was real pressure on iran, and i think we restarted imoarkses with them over their nuclear program. north korea came back into the six-party talks. i think now we're in a different situation, but i want to make this point very clearly because it comes out in the paper of lord williams. the thing that is said most often to me in the middle east by people who opposed what i did , they say you've made iran more powerful. by getting rid of saddam. and my answer to that is very simple, and it's fundamental to this whole question. the answer to iran is not saddam. th was our policy back in the 1980s, and can all we did was then create a monster we couldn't control. >> but getting rid of saddam's nuclear weapons by decapitating the regime, did it send the signal to iran not to go on developing nuclear weapons? >> well, obviously, it sent a signal to everyone which is why libya -- >> yeah, but how have the iranians reacted to that? >> initially, they felt that pressure. now, they don't -- >> do they feel they need them more in case the americans -- >> that is not the reason why iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. >> it was doing it even under the shah. >> well, it's a rather different regime to do. look, i'm out -- people can take two views about iran today, but i will give you my view very, very strongly indeed because this is a looming and coming challenge. i'm out in that region the whole time. i see the impact and influence of iran everywhere. it is negative, destabilizing, it is supportive of of terrorist groups. it is doing everything it can to impede progress in the middle east peace process and to facilitate a situation in which that region cannot embark on the process of modernization it urgently needs. and this is not because we've done something. you know, at some point, and i say this to you with all the passion i possibly can. at some point the west has got to get out of this what i think is a wretched posture of apology for believing that we are causing what the iranians are doing or what these extremists are doing. we're not. the fact is they're doing it because they disagree fundamentally with our way of of life, and they'll carry on doing it unless they are met by the requisite determination and, if necessary, force. and the fact -- look. president obama, not president bush, this is an important point, president obama goes in march 2009, he goes to cairo, right in the heart of islam. he makes a speech where he says, effectively, put aside the bush era. i'm now offering you the hand of friendship. you, iran, can come in this, you're an ancient, proud civilization. we will welcome you in. what's the response he gets? they carry on with the terrorism, they carry on with the destabilization, they carry on with the nuclear weapons program. now, at some point we've got to get our head out of the sand and understand they're going to carry on with this. and we are -- iraq is one part of a far bigger picture, and can right across that region people are facing that struggle. >> mr. blair, in a moment we're going to ask you for the lessons you want to draw from iraq in particular and more broadly, but before we do that, and we have only moments left, i think, sir martin gilbert would like to ask one final question. >> yeah. >> i'd like to ask a final question about your stewardship of iraqi policy, and that is the afghan dimension. in your statement to us, you commented: afghanistan did not effect decisions on drawing down troop levels in iraq. those explicit confirmations from the military about decreased deployment in afghanistan was not dependent on sticking to a scheduled drawdown. you previously confirmed to us that the suggestion for raising troop levels in afghanistan came from the mod. general sharif told us in his ed that, in his view, a decision had been taken to open up a second front in afghanistan before the situation in iraq was satisfactorily resolved. and lord walker told us in his evidence that the afghan conflict was, as he put it, absolutely a brief of the defense planning assumptions. should the military advice on whether it was possible to sustain operations in iraq and afghanistan simultaneously have been revised as the situation in iraq deteriorated, and did you seek such advice? >> well, i, my recollection is that we very specifically did ask whether, if we were going to increase our position in afghanistan, that was going to be a problem if for us in iraq and could we maintain both the uplift and, and the commitment to iraq. and my recollection is that john reid actually very specifically asked for this to be done. so, yes, this was, this was very much part of our thinking. now, it would have been difficult as the security situation because, you know, again, to go back to it, in the first half of 2005, we were still on track. it was really second half of 2005, tic this thing went -- 2006 this thing went bad. but i would have expected them to come to me and say, you know, we can't do this. and i'm not aware that they did although, you know, the thing about the military is that they are, you know, just fantastically good people in the sense that they will, you know, if you ask them to do it, they'll do it. >> but in the, in all our difficulties in basra when we had to withdraw from basra and go to the airport and so on, this somehow by then there simply was no way in which you could readjust the military balance and wouldn't be true to say once maliki went down into basra that we had to abandon our options and certainly abandon any winning strategy? >> no, i mean, look, you know, again, i think what's happened, is happening in basra today is for all the challenges that still remain there, they're getting somewhere as a city, and that's because british forces were there for years as iraqi capability built up. but where basra was very different from baghdad was that in, in baghdad there were, the problem were the attacks on the civilians, right? in basra the attacks were on us, right? so it was i think the view of the military, and this is where i think general danner did at some point in 2006 actually says, you know, we're in danger of becoming the problem here. so our perception always was in basra you needed to get to the point where the iraqis did the operation. now, what we did was we wanted to do i think it was called operation salamanca. we then downgraded that because maliki said to me, look, i want to do this as an iraqi operation. so we down braided it somewhat. but in the end the charge was very successful. it was done, actually, by the way, with british support, and it's why we should hold our head high about what we did in basra. >> mr. blair, i know you wanted ten minutes or so to offer us someless e sons that you think -- lessons that you think a future prime minister might benefit from. would that be a good moment? >> i'll do that, and i'll try and do that and briefly, if i may, sir john. i did, actually, just before i got to those lessons learned, i wanted to say something else. i mean, at the the conclusion of the last hearing you asked me whether i had any regrets. and i took that as a question about the decision to go to war. that i took responsibility. that was taken as my meaning that i had no regrets about the loss of life, and that was never my meaning or my intention. and i wanted to make that clear. that, of course, i regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life whether from our own armed forces, those of other nations, the civilians who help people in iraq or the iraqis themselves. and i just wanted to say that because i think it is right to say it, and it's what i feel. >> thank you. >> now -- >> [inaudible [inaudible conversations] >> quiet. be quiet, please. mr. blair. >> go to the lessons learned. i've got certain lessons which i'm just going to give you which are really to do with the planning. i've then got one or two other political lessons. one of those political lessons is to do with the link between aq and iran, and what i want to say is what i was saying before and i'll repeat myself now, i wanted to make it very clear to you that i think you need to look at this issue to do with aq in iran in a broader context and also the linkages between the two. because i think there are a whole series of particularly defense intelligence reports from 2005 and 2006 which are very, very important in this regard and which detail quite extensively the nature of those activities. and so that is one aspect, as it were, on the political. the second is -- and, again, i've committed these to writing which i will give you -- but the second is on our relationship with america. because i think one recurrent theme of this is, you know, this is, the decision that we were going to stand shoulder to shoulder with america, we'd be with america, this american partnership, it's tough to do. it's easy to say, it's tough to do. and that is particularly so in circumstances where in any operation of this size, i mean, america, frankly, is going to be in the lead and going to have the overwhelming amount of resources and assets. and so the question that people raise perfectly naturally is, well, is it worth it? i mean, is the pain gain ratio really worth it? i think you do have to consider that. my view, obviously, is clear that it is. i think when i look back to kosovo, i don't think we could possibly have done that without american intervention. i think that intervention was absolutely central to being able to deal with that. and so i believe it's important we keep that relationship together. but i think we've got to be realistic about it. you know, when we're in a situation like this, we're going to have to accept that it's going to be difficult and hard because there will be situations in which america is determined to go its own way and where our influence may be be at some levels very great, but at other levels they will have their own strategies and their own interests. i do think that means that our emphasis on multilateral relationships is also extremely important. i personally think there is an even stronger argument today for developing both european defense capability and, also, nation-build being capacity. because i think in both of those areas we could do far more and, therefore, have more weight and more leverage if we were in alongside others. and i think that's also true, by the way, of the way that the united nations do this too. the work that i do now with the palestinian authority where, actually, we're doing precisely those things in a sense that were also the challenge in iraq, building institutional capacity, building civil policing and security and so on. what i have found from that is that no one nation, actually not even america, is capable of doing that on its own. it is a cooperative effort, and the capacity should be built on a cooperative basis. the final thing i would say is this, and this is through my experience of being prime minister not just in this situation, but in other situations too. i think what does come across as very frustrates is when i read the evidence of people who have come to you and said, well, we could see there was a real problem here, particularly on the resource question. and i'm in downing street having given a strong instruction to say, look, if there's a resource issue, pay the money, and the chancellor is agreeable to that. i think we need to think about when we're in a situation like this and particularly in the first critical stages of nation building, i think you need a transmission system of information to the prime minister that is qualitatively different from the one we had. and i think, you know, that bit of it, i think, you know, i changed the downing street structure as you know because originally you had one foreign policy adviser dealing with all foreign policy and northern ireland. i then switched it into, well, effectively three, actually. but one foreign policy dealing with europe, one foreign policy adviser dealing with the rest of the eshoos. issues. but i think in retrospect if you're, for that first period you actually need right situation in capital office number 10 a top-level ability headed by a senior person that is going to go direct to the prime minister. now, that's not to say that your foreign is ec tear, your defense secretary, your development secretaries aren't going to be involved in this. but what does come out to me in some of the pages that's being given to you is the frustration. now, in the end, i don't think it would have got us around the central problem, but i do think that's an important lesson for the future. i've given some more lessons ng,h planning specifically and .. will leave that with you, if i might. >> thank you very much. this has been an unusually long session, and i'm grateful to mr. blair for attending this lengthy hearing. and i'm very grateful to those in this hearing room who have listened so attentively and patiently through this long set of proceedings. that attention reinforces for us the importance of the issues for you, some of you here in this room. and with that i'll bring this session to a close. our next hearing will be next tuesday morning at 10:00 when we will be hearing from the former cabinet secretary, lord wilson, who retired inptem >> that is the end of this morning's proceedings. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> on saturday, a town hall discussion on u.s.-canada relations, topics include immigration, trade, and security. you'll hear remarks from the canadian ambassador to the u.s. and the claims magazine are co-hosting the event. it's at 4 p.m. eastern on c-span. tuesday, president obama delivers the state of the union address to the joint congress. live coverage at 8 p.m. eastern followed by the president's speech at 9 and responses from paul ryan of wisconsin, plus your phone calls and reactions on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. you can watch also on c-span2. >> family, friends, and former colleagues gathered to pay republics at a wake and memorial service for former ambassador car gent shriver. he died after a long bout with alzheimer's disease. joining there is former senator chris dodd and george mcgovern. it was held in washington. this is an hour and 40 minutes. >> we welcome you all here this evening. brothers and sisters, we believe that the ties of friendship among is does not unravel with death. confident that god is with us always even in death, let us pray for our brother that he may have fullness of life. we also pray for ourselves gathered here that the lord may grant us constellation and peace. let us now sing together, "amazing grace" number 737 in the red hymnal, 737. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> let us pray. god, blessers, in light of the just, by the death and resurrection of jesus, we are redeemed. show us the light of chris' resurrection as we pray for sarg and those who loved him. we ask this through christ our lord. please be seated. [inaudible] >> we've been working on this and rehearsing this as you can see. we're all coming up; right? okay. well, the idea was we were all going to come up, so we all wanted to welcome you here today and say that one of the great blessings of this moment for all of us, it's a chance for all of us to spend a lot of time together in the days before dad passed and the days thereafter working on plans and talking with each other, and one of the scenes that came up repeatedly is not only where there many people who felt they were his kids as many said, but daddy loved to party, and everybody -- the thing he disliked most about the party is when the last person got ready to leave, and i think timmy said that daddy used to go to the door with that last person and say, won't you please stay a little longer? [laughter] usually the person relented and did stay. we believe in the power if you will of the party to bring people together and bring forth many of our relationships and the great work that many of you did with him, so we hope that the atmosphere even though we are in a church, that the atmosphere tonight will be a party for daddy and feel this is a celebration of his life that so many of our friends are here from all over the world and daddy's friends, and we'll listen to the amazing friends of daddy's who will tell you stories about different parts of his life and listen to the amazing music of our friends who flew over here on short notice and prepared everything, and have a great evening, so we welcome here and look forward to chatting with all of you after. oh, and our first speaker is the one and only danny hoyer. well, bobby, this is the kind of crowd you feel informal in. none of us will be nervous about celebrating the extraordinary life. bobby, maria, mark, anthony, my friends, i'm not your brother or sister, i understand that, but i think bobby's right. in a real sense, we are all his children in this house tonight. in his forward to scot's biography, another one of my heros, bill hoyer started the first line being he changed my life. i'm sure that bill will speak to that when his turn comes. i say that, bill, about his brother-in-law whose inauguration 50 years ago we just congressmen rated. how fitting, perhaps that that congressmen #* -- commemoration was so involved as well. i can say that since meeting him over 48 years ago, that he and she and their children have greatly enriched my life. we met at the washington motel in september of 1962 at the marilyn young's convention. he was the speaker, a person of towering, awe-inspiring proportions, and of course his wife, eunis, the sister of my hero who herself was to become my hero, what an extraordinary couple, a partnership of priceless, selfless service. sarg was a manage with a passion for people, energy, and drive and full of enthuse yam. we all experienced that. he was most assuredly a good and decent man as ted said of bobby. we and marilyn are proud to count sarjshriver as our son. i was hoping to support him for governor. with his roots deep in marilyn and his faith, i was convinced he could be elected governor of maryland, but he was still ambassador in france, and that campaign was not to be. thousands knew him and millions more knew of him. perhaps not face to face, but through the legacy of good works he left behind, a legacy that captures not just a lasting parts of his personality, but the american personality at its very best. if you work side-by-side with an american peace corp. volunteer, no matter how far from our shores, you know sergeant shriver. education was laid in a head start shriver. if you felt the challenge and joy of competition in the special olympics, you know sergeant shriver. his biographer wrote of his faith, of his faith in service. if sergeant could have willed anything to us to all those who knew him, i believe he would have willed us that faith in service, that kind of faith, however, is something that can be kindled by words or example if we open ourselves up to them. if we find if our own lives something of the hopefulness that moves sergeant shriver's life for those 95 extraordinary years. again, i use the word of bill. bill, i hope i haven't taken all of your stuff. [laughter] reading his forward in the biography, it was so compelling, and i agree saying "he is the christian who came closest to the imitation of christ in a life of service." what a wonderful way to describe an extraordinary life. sergeant said the only genuine elite is the elite of those men and women who gave their lives to justice and charity. that is a deeply american faith. an elite not set by birth or wealth, not bounded by time or place, but open and equal to every one of us who truly chooses to join us. sergeant was a charter member of the elite service, worthy of our unrestrained admiration, republic, love, and appreciation. indeed, sergeant was a giant in the generation that we call the greatest. his life was an invitation, an invitation to each of us to join him, an invitation to ask not what others can do for you, but for what you can do for others, and the measure of his success is in the number of men and women who inspired by his example accepted his invitation, literally tens of thousands who reached out then to millions and millions and made their lives better. as we have remembered so often over the last few days, president kennedy said that god's work on earth must truly be our own. sergeant took that responsibility seriously. he thrived in it, made america better, and he made each of us better as well. now, let me ask his friend, steve payne lucas to come. [applause] >> all my best to the shriver family. when i got the call to come this evening, i almost turned it down. i was told i had three minutes. how can you say what you want to say about one of the greatest persons we produced in this country in three minutes? if you ever dealt with bobby shriver, when he tells you three minutes, it's really three minutes. [laughter] so i have no choice but when the news came about his death, i felt like losing an election. i'm too old to cry, but it hurts too much to laugh. shriver's departure is no small thing. someone asked me yesterday who was he like? who do you compare him with? i thought for just a few minutes, and the one name that came to my mind was nelson mandela. this was no ordinary person put here on earth. like mandela, he carried no animosity. those who saw south africa gain independence, you know, it will be a blood bath. mandela said, no, only if we will respect each other's culture. we could have cultural sensitivity, the keyword to shriver these thing in the peace corp.. we talk about being trained and whatnot, but the one thing he put forth was culture sensitivity. that is as current today as it was then. we need more cultural sensitivity in america, and we need a lot more sergeant shrivers. [applause] >> the with the that some of us can live in our neighborhoods and never meet our neighbors, that was unthinkable in shriver's world. regardless of the problems you had or whatever your color was, it meant nothing to shriver other than you were a human being and deserved to be listened to and needed to be helped. that's what he was all about. this is special, this is special. he learned early in the peace corp. if you could train volunteers well, teach them some cross culture sensitivity and some language and let them live amongst the people regardless of their culture and stations in life, you could make the community better. that, in fact, should be our foreign policy. that, in fact, should be our domestic policy. we need to get ready for the future because the future is coming. bid middle of the century, this church will not look like the people in this room. they will have turned color. they will be brown, blue, whatever you want to say for sergeant knew that. that's the challenge. learning to live together to make up the mind that people cannot be prescribed by some kind of decision that someone made in the church or in a town somewhere. shriver said it was gist the human being, and when he traveled to these far away places, if he knew a volunteer was having trouble, he got in that car or jeep and not stop until he got to listen to his or her story. the problem with sergeant shriver? there was not enough of him to go around. we celebrate him today. in the words of our bishop, when the earth was born in spirit and the oldest planet was new and before god ordered the chaos and painted the heaven with blue, he ordained one that the glory of life is struggle and the secret of progress is ripe, so enjoy in the midst of sorrow, smile in tear, hold on to the bright tomorrow, and fight through all your fears, forward your trowels to triumphs. this is god's oldest plan, to enjoy your life of struggle and go out and face it as a woman or a man. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> may i introduce you to the next peace corp. volunteer, maureen. [applause] >> thank you so much. do i have to follow a preacher? [laughter] how fitting for sergeant that yesterday was the 50th anniversary of john kennedy's famous askerration, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. this year is the 50th anniversary of the peace corp.. throughout his life from heroic naval service in world war ii through civil rights, the peace corp., the war on poverty, as ambassador to france and politics, and founder of special olympics, he embodied ask not. he turned that into action and provided peace to volunteers like me. he's some of the most fulfills parts of our life. he is the reason i still go back to columbia to work on my old peace corp. site. he was the one who allowed us to take incredible journeys across the globe and to grasp in our hearts and minds what a privilege it was to serve. we learned firsthand about the beauties of the world, the people, learn deep in our bones whether living in huts or teaching in villages, it was after becoming friends with the people we served and sharing with them at the most basic human level that we can honestly say, hey, really, we get it about the meaning of the lofty concepts of human dignity, democracy, and peace. sergeant was our founding father, our treasure. he let us be our best selfs. he taught us all, and he knew it, of course. once i introduced him as a george washington in the peace corp., and he said no, no, george washington was here in the peace corp.. i'm here. [laughter] then we had to bring him back down to earth, and what an amazing partnership they had. he honestly thought she should be a saint when maybe it should be the reverse for him so loyally serving her. once on the phone -- [laughter] once on the phone, he told me how the peace corp. got started. she said that one day he called the house looking for sergeant. what do you want him for? head up the peace corp., jack, he's not here. call back in # hours. at 8:30 p.m. the president called again, and sergeant was there. he immediately came downstairs and put the peace corp. together. you could have made a musical comedy out of it. they had no offices. it was five men in a hotel one. five come in, five leave. she made it sound like -- [inaudible] he showed that because of his potential for failure, heading the peace corp. was the ultimate brother-in-law job. [laughter] he had the agency up and running in six months during the height of the cold warp and cuban missile crisis, he traveled the world personally selecting invitations from head of state becoming known as softed power. they didn't want our guns or protection, just us kids and committed grown-ups, countries like iran, iraq, afghanistan, happily welcomed us. one of his original plan had been able to play out and score thousands of peace volunteers who served in the country. it's hard to ask if we would now be at war. sergeant more than anyone i knew lived his faith and opened his heart to the gospel. his kind and as spiritual as he was, he could also be tough. i remember about 20 years ago we were in the missst of planning a meeting of prominent peace volunteers and politicians because along with us, sergeant was indig and the peace corp. couldn't expand. he thought it was disgraceful that the peace corp. doesn't have the budget of the military marching bands. i sent a clipping about an embassy official who had hired a private investigator in the u.s. to find his old teacher from 25 years before. the african man found his beloved teacher named ron hawks in maine still in front of a black board teaching 1st and 2nd agreeders. he entered the class unannounced, and he sang the song, she'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. maybe it would be a smart move for us to invite ronald jay hawks you're planning. maybe the big shots would be impressed to hear about the profound impression made by an unknown peace corp. volunteer. that was sergeant. i loved how he fought for us, and i have to admit i loved him more at his house after i introduced him to my late husband who was just named bureau chief of nbc news. he totally ignored him and said the only reason he's invited here is because of you. [laughter] [applause] sergeant always wanted you to think you were the star and he got a lot of people, sometimes funny off-beat people to do his bidding. al those his alzheimer's were advanced he never forgot his prayers or good manners. i told a story at his wife's 85 birthday party in 2006. he spotted by son, luke, and said, you're a good looking kid. are you one of my sons? [laughter] at the end, he died with his five children and 19 grandchildren surrounding him in love and prayer. what could be better than to be daddy to such a beautiful family so committed to serving others? his family is a front line of what he has always preached. on the 40th anniversary of the peace corp., he worked as home as he did abroad and served. that's the answer. that's the objective. that's the challenge. god bless you, sarg. [applause] [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ . . ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] [applause] >> my name is chris dodd, dominican republic 6. [laughter] [applause] >> and bobby, thank you for asking me to follow lavera day. thank you. how about another round of applause. great job. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> now the admonition was only three minutes. but as a retired member of the united states senate, i don't understand that at all. i tell you. [laughter] >> we take at least that long to clear our throats when it comes to public service. bobby, thank you for asking me to be a part of this wonderful evening. with you and your family and those who gathered here to celebrate the remarkable man and remarkable life that touched so many of us for so many years. i know the analogy doesn't quite fit, but over the past three or four days since i first heard sergeant's death, i kept coming back to july 4, 1826. the 25th anniversary of the birth of our nation, and the death, of course, of thomas jefferson and john adams. here we'd be gathered over the past several days to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a rebirth of that spirit which ignited the imagination of a new generation of americans. and at the same time, mourn the passing of a wonderful man to celebrate the life and the contributions of that individual. who other than president and mrs. kennedy was the embodiment of everything that the new president asked our country in his inaugural address 50 years ago yesterday. now historians will no doubt chronicle as they should, the long and impressive list of various posts as sergeant held as a private citizen and public servant over the years. however, these brief moments i want to recall if i can with you the unbridled, afusive, over the top, enthusiasm, joy, optimism, and confidence that sergeant brought to everyone and everything that he encountered in his rich life. all of you in this room have good memories of my friend sergeant shriver over the years. if i were to tell you that sergeant shriver was one the most natural politicians i had ever known, there might be a few of you here that think i was being sarcastic. in fact, sergeant might think i was being sarcastic. in the spring of 1976, i was a young congressman seeking re-election. to law firm my efforts, i invited sergeant shriver to be the principal attractions a the chariton hotel in norwich, connecticut. 400 people backed into the ball room to boost my campaign and to of course, hear sergeant. who at the time was considering a run for the presidency. i was excited. after all, sergeant shriver was the person along with president kennedy, as steny pointed out, inspired me and thousands of others to be a part of something larger than ourselves. just ten years earlier, i had joined the peace corps and spent two years in the mountains of the doe min -- dominican republic. the nation's premier builder of submarines locally employed some 28,000 people in connecticut. far and away the largest employer in my congressional district. many in the audience that evening worked at that submarine building. without a note, he gave a stem winder that night. ideas and proposed discussed that evening like a torrent of a fire hose. as each moment of sergeant's speech pass, my confidence for re-election rose. until about midway through his remarks that evening. at that moment, sergeant announced in words i can still recall with great clarity to this pac tall. if sergeant shriver is elected president of the united states, by golly, we're going to stop building those submarines. [laughter] >> now what inspired next took only a few seconds. but to the newly midnighted congressman, those seconds seemed like an eternality. first of all the crowd of pipe fitters, boilmakers, machinist, laborers, small business, all local people burst into applause. his enthusiasm was contagious, the crowd missed what he had just said. [laughter] [applause] >> and was reacting instinctively to his passion in words. i, of course, was ashen, completely ashen. one term in congress, and my brilliant political career was about to come to a screeching halt. sergeant took one look at this young congressman, and without missing a beat and with equal gusto, booming voice and exuberance, said the following: if sergeant shriver is elected president of the united states, by golly, we're not going to build those damn submarines. anywhere but in connecticut, he said at the end. [laughter] [applause] >> wow. boom. standing ovation. sustained applause. and the rest, of course, is history. two weeks ago, i retired from the united states senate. 35 years, seven elections later, thank you, sergeant shriver. [laughter] [applause] >> well, years before that speech that night in connecticut, i became aware of sergeant shriver. in those days, the shrivers home boarded the property of the school. in the early days of fall, i remember watching eunice shriver. eunice and sergeant called what would be the play date the special olympics. only eunice could find eight or ten children and call it special olympics. how wonderful they could be too olympians. what an incredible impression they left on this 17-year-old as i watched them from that perspective of the school yard. the sister and brother-in-law of the president of the united states, quietly giving hope and confidence to those who had rarely, if other, seen either. now other than the influence of my own family growing up, the peace corps, of course, like maureen was my epiphany. it was the experience more than any other, which changes my life. sergeant as we all know, made multiple contributions, of course, in the numerous positions that he held. but if you had to choose one, i suspect if charged -- sergeant had to choose one, it would be his association with the peace corps, it's creation, it's development, it's vision, and ideals, and the long standing approval by people all over this planet that will live and endure forever. what a revolutionary idea this was. for the mightiest nation on earth at that time, to send it's people overseas. not to extent it's power, intimidate it's enemies, not too kill or be killed, but to build and teach and never ask anything in return. it was a wild notion, indeed. the peace corps idea. like most ideas achieved at 2:00 in the morning, it might not have survived a board meeting in the light of day. but because of a handful of individuals, a long time friend and associate harris walford, and a few others, including sergeant, it endured. sergeant loves this story. it deserves being repeated. president kennedy asked him to lead the peace corps, because the sergeant said everything in washington thought the peace corps was going to be the biggest fiasco in history. it would be easier to fire a relative than someone else. "time" magazine had to this say. in his first two years, he logged 350,000 miles, visiting corps outposts, learned to sleep sitting up in a jeep, ate countless helpings of local dishes, developed three cases of disintear, and bravely insisted that i have the best damn job in government. there have been many people that have led the peace corps. but all 200,000 of rpcvs would agree without sergeant ever, ever, ever seizing inspirational leadership, i don't believe the peace corps would have survived a half century. other than my family, no one took a greater pleasure of pride, and in the united states senate than sergeant shriver. paul of massachusetts and i were the first return peace corps volunteers to be elected into the house and united states senate. sergeant would remind me on every occasion he saw me, the only reason i was successful was because of my peace corps experience that made all of the difference. now while i'll always intend the peace corps held a unique and special status, his other contributions to the agenda of america are nothing short of stunning. as i think back on my 30 years in the senate, i now realize that i not only represented the people of connecticut, i represented sergeant shriver, public service inc.. i will tell you the most rewarding work was to protect, expand, and contribute to head start, the national service corporation, community action programs, and so had other shriver initiatives. children and their families across the country. over the past few days and of the weeks to come, of course, there will be numerous occasions to celebrate the words, the accomplishments, and the countless contributions that sergeant shriver and others of that era, those leaders that made for our country over a century ago. however, i want to close the remarks by suggesting to all of you here gathered, that individually and collectively, those contributions in my view do not come close to the greatest gifts that eunice and sergeant and president kennedy, my tear friend teddy and bobby, along with those members of your family gave to our country. and ambassador gene smith, i might point out, continues to give today. the greatest gifts are you, the children, the grandchildren, nieces and nephews of these remarkable, remarkable people. today in particular we point out maria and bobby and tim and mark and anthony. it's important that each of you know, as i'm sure you do, how deeply, deeply proud your parents were and are of your determines efforted to make this world a better and safer place. as we mark these occasions, we may come to real realize that te 1960s were a time not unlike our own today. today our politics, politics then as today was angry. our society was divided as we know. and our future was very uncertain indeed. therefore, as we seek common ground in these days and a path forward in another yet difficult age, as those who are entering or preparing to entering a public life, and are looking for role models to imitate, you need look no further than the individual we honor this evening, sergeant shriver. look to his brave and optimism, and sunny confidence, the life that he lived full of love and humor, and hope, and determination. look to how insistently he believed america was a place in which anything can and should serve their nation, and, yes, even win a gold metal. for that, sergeant, and so much more, all of you thank you deeply. [applause] [applause] >> would you welcome a great friend of sergeant, colman mccarthy. cole? >> very fitting tonight we meet here at a church. sergeant was a great friend, three of the children did go to colleges, maria and anthony, and mark, and i knew sergeant loved judgewits, we were in new orleans one time for a speech. and we went along and got there on a saturday afternoon. and i'm walking around town. we happened to be on barone street with the church there. sergeant looks at the sign out front. there was hearing confession from four to six. so sergeant said, gee, we ought to go in. and i said, when's the last time you went to confession, sergeant? well, a week ago. i said you really don't let anything slide, don't you? [laughter] >> so we go inside. and a little bit of a line. but sergeant's turn finally came. he walks into the box and pushes the curtain back. five minutes went by. 10 minutes went by. 15 minutes went by. and it was half an hour. and he finally came out. so i said are we leaving the church, i said sergeant, it was a week ago since you went to confession. [laughter] >> have you been doing that much sinning in the last week? he said, no, there's a very right wing priest in there. [laughter] >> and we just talked politics and he's trying to save my soul. and, in fact, i just had one sin to confession, he said. i said what was that sin? he said last tuesday i disagreed with eunice. [laughter] >> well, i said, that clearly is a mortal sin. [laughter] >> so then i said, what about penance? well, the priest gave me, he told me to say for my penance, 10 our fathers, and 10 hail mary's, and for the rest of your life, love republicans. now arnold, that might explain something, arnold. you know how much he loved you. he loved you because he was doing his penance. [laughter] >> i happen to great luck to be -- sergeant asked me to be his speechwriter. writing speeches for sergeant shriver was as easy as breathing. you know what speech writers do. we are kind of like pearl divers. we surround ourselves with the great quotes down through the ages. our job is to sprinkle in those quotes so the politicians seem to be deep thinkers and literate. [laughter] >> how much of you -- [laughter] >> how many of you here right now when a politician gives and says something in a speech and he quotes someone, he was home the name before reading them? [laughter] >> or if he quotes aristotle, do you think that politician was home last night reading? with sergeant shriver, it was very different. i didn't supply him the quotes. he supplied to me the quotes. i remember one time, traveling on a plane to the speech. sergeant sitting across the aisle. here, listen to this. get down in tomorrow. when he quoted dorthy day, it was because he read dorthy's great book "the long loneliness." when he quoted thomas merten, he read "seven story mountain." when he quoted dan, he read the war book, "the 9th flight to hanoy." he considered dorthy, thomas, and dan the three greatest catholics. they were all pass -- pacifist. dorthy's line, very few of you will be called on to do great things. all of us can do small things in a great way. he loved that great line from thomas merten, peace is the result of love. and if love was easy, we'd all be good at it. he looked dan bearington's line, in fact, he invited dan bearington, he once worked for oeo. he was in 1966 in the summer, he worked with upward bound in a little town south of denver. he was tutoring the children of migrant workers. he would come to oeo when we have half meetings and sit in. and the line -- the line that sergeant loved most from dan bearington, the poor have it hard. but the hardest thing they have is us. and sergeant offered used that one. and the past few days, i've heard from many other friends. they told me that we'll never have another one like sergeant. i'm not so sure about that. five reasons why not. bobby, maria, tim, mark, and anthony. each one of those is so similar to sergeant, there's almost no difference. because they too are people who are exactly what sergeant was, others centers and not self-centered. the work they are doing, each in their own way, is doing exactly what sergeant did. they are decreasing violence and increasing peace. i would like also -- i want to mention also the -- i was going to mention the 19 grandchildren. but bobby told me to keep this speech short. don't mention the grandchildren. so i tell all -- i would like to mention their names, such as catherine and tim and christina and rosy and sam, the others, get mad at uncle bobby, okay? [laughter] >> i just want to finish up. there's a lovely -- i was -- i went to visit sergeant a few days ago. and we just held hands for a while. and i brought out -- i brought out a book that i use, i edited a few years ago. and the title of it comes from a speech that sergeant once gave. strength through peace. he did not belief in peace through strength. because he knew what it meant. it meant -- it meant peace through military strength, which he clearly rejected. so he turned that around and made it called, strength through peace. i use this book, i edited the book for all of my class. in fact, next wednesday at my class on american university, i'm doing a whole class on the life and times of sergeant shriver. we will have a very good class. [applause] >> so i read this is in chapter 4. and entitled how does goodness happen? do you ever wonder about that? how do they get that way? and this is -- i read this from mother theresa, who sergeant idolized. you may have heard this one. but this explains how sergeant came to be. how his goodness happened. people are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. love them anyway. if you do good, people may accuse of you selfish motives. do good anyway. if you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. succeed anyway. the good that you do today maybe forgetten by tomorrow. do good anyway. honesty will make you vulnerable. be honest anyway. what you spend years building up, maybe torn down overnight. build anyway. people who really want help may attack you if you help them. help them anyway. give the world the best that you have and you may get hurt. give the world your best anyway. so when we come together, on the special evening like this, we should be inspired by those words because those clearly define the soul and heart of our dear sergeant. and i think it's important to remember that because when times gets tough, and the hills get steep, and the cold win blows against us, and the doubts grow stronger, we will be tempted to run out, give out, wear out, and worse of all, sell out. : sarge shriver never did. i remember after the 72 election and sarge and george were talking to each other. sarge told george, we might have lost the election but we sure did not lose our soul. [applause] to end on a happy note, i am delighted to say -- i teach courses at georgetown, american university, and a couple of >> i had young tim shriver in my high school class a few years ago which meant at 7:25 a.m. for all you early riser, and i also had anthony shriver in my class. whenever i get together with the shriver children, there's always several who claimanthony didn't earn the a-plus, that i gave it to him, and if i had a bible here to swear on tonight, i wold say that he earned his a-mrs. . [applause] we're all getting scoffing that anthony earned that a-plus. if you don't mind could tim and anthony just stand up and give a nice round of applause. [applause] [cheers and applause] oh, i thank you bobby for inviting me to visit with you. i large sarge with all my heart, and i know the family keeps that going forever. we ought to remember that we ought not -- sarge said, one of his great lines, don't go out and change the world. if you're a peacemaker, make sure the world never changes you, and i think that epitomizes him. thank you. [applause] i think george mcgovern just flew in from florida. here he is. come up. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> i'm glad that i got here in time to hear my cherished friend, chris dodd, give you that three minute speech -- [laughter] and now we ask who has given us another thought-filled three minutes. [laughter] i wouldn't have made it at all if we didn't have all the three minute speeches. i missed my plane coming out of jacksonville, florida. my fault. i got to talking to a couple of passengers, and all the sudden, i heard my name on the paging system, and by the time i got to the gate, they said the plane had gone. i thought, well, what do i do now? i used the time while i was waiting to fill the next plane to write some brilliant notes that i was going to share with you here today, and i left those in my overcoat. [laughter] i decided that it was less painful listening to a couple of speeches here than going out into that cold again, so here we are. it's a pleasure -- [laughter] it's a pleasure for me to follow the speakers that you've heard from, and it's a pleasure to be in this beautiful church. my dad was a methodist clergyman, but we methodists are very humble people. we don't have lovely churches like this -- [laughter] you know what they say about us methodists. methodism will not save you from sin, but it will take the fun out of it. [laughter] sargent shriver was the kindest, the most cheerful, the most optimistic person i've met in 50 years in public life. it's remarkable that those virtues could all be combined in one person. i don't ever recall him being down in the dumps. he must have had days like that, but nobody ever, ever saw them if he did. he gave me a lot of words that i have used over the years in public speeches, but i think the one i treasure most is this. it came after the 72 campaign. he and i came back from washington that day in separate planes, and i suppose through some cooperation with the pilots, we landed at the same time and taxied over to the same station at the national airport. i still call it the national -- [laughter] [applause] i have no mall las toward president reagan. [laughter] anyway, eleanor and i had been talking on the flight back home, but when he got out of that plane and walked across the area there at the airport, that was probably started a year and a half earlier in the field of 15 contenders, some of them very capable men. i could have gladly supported any one of them, but we were really down, and eleanor was looking at the returns the day before, and she finally said as we were to get off the airplane, oh, george, even south dakota went for nixon. she started to cry, and we were not in good shape, but sarge apparently saw us, and he walked over to there, he put an arm around me and around eleanor, and he said, you know, george, we lost 49 states, but we never lost our souls. that meant a lot to me coming from a man that i knew went to mass every morning seven days a week, i knew he was a person of some spiritual depth, but it meant a lot to me, and i've careyed that -- carried that with me ever since. i don't know exactly what a soul is, but i know it's something precious, and i know that we cherish in regard of our being and that's why we do worship and go to church, go to synagogues, whatever it is, so, anyway, this was a very good man. he -- he had a way in the campaign when our paths happened to cross. we divided. we had different airplanes # and wanted to cover as many states, cities, and towns as we could, but we'd meet once in awhile, and he's always have the message of a good cheer. he told me a week before the election one day, i spoke to him, how's it going, sarge? he said, well, it's just terrific. he said i've been in texas now four times, and we got that thing locked up. [applause] [laughter] he said, why not believe that as long as you can? i listened to it carefully when we would meet sarge. i could tell you a lot of stories about him, but i actually have a slight respect for three minutes, and so i'm going to break the bode here today and try to bring this to an end. we're honoring a marvelous man here. let me just finish by telling you how he ended up on the national ticket. there was a time in that campaign when a month before the national convention, it appeared that i had it locked up. i had won 11 primaries, winning the two largest of new york and california, but there were a lot of other states, 11 others. we had the delegates to win, but the other candidates for reasons known only to them decided to make a last-minute effort to all team together to pool their votes and to try to block us at the convention, so we worked that last month when we should have been getting ready for a great dimension and should have been thinking about a vice presidential running mate, when we should have been giving attention to my acceptance address and things of that kind. we spent that time trying to save the delegates we already had, and it wasn't until midnight of the nominating day when i had the nomination awarded to me, and by then, we were exhausted. we had about eight hours to pick a running mate, and we had a short listment i thought -- list. i thought to my friend, ted kennedy, and he thought about this seriously. he kept us overnight and way into the next morning, and the time was beginning to run out. finally he said he just didn't feel he could do it, so we quickly put together a short list, and sarge shriver was high on that list, but you know something? he was in russia, and we couldn't find him. we couldn't locate him. that was before the days of cell phones, but if we'd found him that day, he would have been my running mate right in the beginning. instead of that, we went through a list. finally, we ended up with senator eagleton and on the invasive actors, we asked him to step down, and then we had just a short time to replace him, and i went to sarge, talked to him, he said absolutely. i'd be happy to run with you, and that's how he became my nominee, and he was a good one. i will honor him the rest of my days and his spean did family -- splendid family and treasure all the joy, sheer, on optimism, and faith that he imparted on so many of us over the years. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> the -- [inaudible] [laughter] as bill hoyer once said -- [laughter] and will say again -- [laughter] thank you. i wish all of you who knew sarge could be up here right now instead of me. sarge brought out the best in each of us so that what you would tell about your experience with him would reveal something about you. that was one of his gifts to us. you would provide groves to his genius in surrounding himself be people who represented in their various ways in those times the heart and soul of america. this was the man, remember, who brought to government an amazing array of talent. journalists, lawyers, psychologists, and psychiatrists, he said he hired the first psychiatrist to work for the government. i haven't been able to source that, but i'll take your word for it. civil service officers who were frustrated by bureaucracies and so run the peace corp. in india, he recruited the physician who had been a leader in the first assault in k-2 in the himalayas and became america's leading expert in high altitude flying. the man who figured out in world war ii how our pilots could fly higher than the japanese and german pilots. in napal, he had another -- the west coast had of the naacp, the agency of international developments most visionary bureaucrat, a seasoned practitioner of politics, and top investigative politics from all over the country, not since the days of fdr's new deal had such a critical mass of experience ascended on this town. i was one of his first corporals in that band of men and women he invited to help put the peace corps. together. if sarge ever achieved the presidency and a few millimeters of tilt in the political wheel of fortune in the late 1960s might have done it, he would have changed literally the face of government. he would have transformed since the president has such great powers of metaphor, he would have transformed the way the americans see ourselves and our place in the world. he carried two passports. one of them grounded in the soil of american democracy to which he had given five years of naval service to defend, and another as a global citizen. he believed a single individual could be as important as any institution, could relieve misery, nurture minds, and inspire others, and crack open just a little further gates long closed by bigotry, ignorance, and fortune. just as he saw the best in others, others saw the best in him. i never met anyone so trusted by his peers. one of his most brilliant recruits was a young bill josephson who is here tonight, not long out of law school, plucked by sarge from another agency to be the peace corps. architect of its structure which exists today. the loyalty to the man and the idea created a bond between them and a friendship that lasted to the end. bill and i have -- bill and i will dinner in new york the other night, and he reminded me how sarge's character had become a mag innocent for -- magnet for trust. he was the one that had the advice that kennedy took. it turned the election. he was the one to whom john kennedy entrusted the staffing of his cabinet and the administration. he was the one to whom john kennedy entrusted the peace corps., his most enduring legacy, and johnson, the war on poverty, head start, job services, and all the other innovations in social justice, and in turn, sarge entrusted us with a calling most of us had never imagined. i was 26 when we met. he was 45. he was worldly wise, widely read, and well-connected. i was still wet behind the ears, but he treated me as he did everyone, as if i were his equal. i suggested we ask vice president johnson for advice when how to sell the peace corps. to congress when they considered the idea naive. in not one session, the two of them spent more time together than they had in their lives, and after that, the vice president called me at home that night and said that the way to sell the peace corps. was to sell shriver. they can't resist him. [laughter] and they didn't. [applause] over the next -- [applause] over the next few months, we called on every member of congress, every member of the house, and every senator. most were dazzled to be courted by the president's charismatic brother-in-law, but what turned the tide was not the glamour, but the passion, that spark in his eye, that signal, an inner fire of conviction and compassion. i saw jaded, cynical politicians begin to pay attention as sarge talked about america's revolutionary ideas and our mission to carry them out in the world as down-to-earth, believable card-carrying idealists who can show how freedom is served by a teacher in the classroom and clean water for the new pump in the village square. maria and i were talking earlier about this extraordinary outpouring in the press and from ordinary citizens in the last few days since his death, for a man who had not been playing on the stage for a long time, it was remarkable, the last four days. i believe it happened because justice he gave us per permission in the 1960s to be idealists. the discouraged the dismayed country who intuitively word came to his staff. it was okay to be an idealist. he was as the documentary about him said, the american idealist. there was one old unreconstructed southern racist whose chairmanship committee met of life or death to the appropriation. he was agas that young americans living and working abroad might practice this. not only practice it, he said, but bring it home with them. sarge never blinked as this sob went through a long insulting speech. congressman, he said, when the man hushed, surely you can trust young americans to do abroad exactly what they do back in your district in louisiana. [laughter] we left the fellow scratching his head. [laughter] when i returned later alone, his secretary told me he confessed i was had. [laughter] indeed, while the chairman remained, shriver plucked off the full committee above him and mitigated his opposition. he was a one-man society. as curious about my training in a baptist seminary, he was an at tar boy -- altar boy and he wanted to serve close to john the 23rd. i said, i think you are about as close as anybody will ever get to carrying out his ideals. one day on the plane, he discoursed in detail how science of the heart could transform the church into a powerful progressive force in a world polarized by ideology, militarism, and materialism. let me tell you that the sarge was such a man as a life defining experience. despite his own extended clan, he had time for other families. when my wife suffered a miscarriage, sarge showed up at the hospital with a copy of "to kill a mocking bird," and sat beside the bed and held her hand. today she is still amazed by this man who showed up in the gynecology ward to comfort a woman he barely knew. [laughter] when our son was struck, sarge intervened, insisted we take the boy to john hopkins hospital to be examined by the world's leading pediatricians, a shriver friend. i left one morning for a long trip abroad. i stopped by and said to maryann orlando, the highest person above shriver, and without her, we would have been washed away in the cataclysm that he created. she's here tonight. she gave me a novel called "the promise". he underlined passages, and there's this one. "human beings don't live very long. we live less than the time it takes to blink an eye. if we measure our lives against eternity, so we may ask what value is there to a human life? there is so much pain in the world. why do we suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than a blink of the eye?" i learned a long time ago that is blink of the eye is nothing, but the eye that blinks, that is something. a span of life is nothing, but the man who lives it, he is something. he can tell that tiny span with meaning so that it's quality -- its quality is immeasurable. you did. you did. [applause] [applause] >> this is very quick, we just wanted to -- i'm maria and mark and anthony, and boib you heard about. we wanted to thank everybody here tonight for coming to honor our father. we want to thank all of you who spoke. you are extraordinary, and you captured everything about daddy so beautifully, and so we want to thank you for putting the time and effort to capture who he was as a man and as a father, as an idealist, as a man of thought, and to represent him to so many people here today. we want to thank everybody for coming. so many were peace corps. coal -- volunteers and worked at special olympics, and some had not met him, but served him in a restaurant downtown. i think this is very representative of who daddy was, and we want to invite all of you obviously to his funeral tomorrow. we want to thank our family and cousins and everybody for being here and treating daddy particularly in the last several years with such love and kindness and patience and humor and still making him feel valuable up to the end, and my brothers had done an extraordinary job in taking care of my dad in such a beautiful and elegant way, and they were and are truly his sons, and they redefine i think what it means to be a man the way they took care of my father, and so daddy would always end everything every evening with a toast where he would stand up saying he's the luckiest man in the world and say everything he had and everything he was and everything was all due to mommy, and she said, oh, stop it, but she really liked it. [laughter] he did it all over the world, and there suspect probably a woman here tonight who wasn't charmed by da di, who wasn't told she was the most beautiful woman in the world by daddy, and yet he only had eyes for one woman, and that was mommy. i think we all take great comfort knowing that mommy and daddy a together now in heaven with god. those were the loves of his life. he was devoted to both of them in every since of that word. loved them deeply, and i think that's why we feel that this is a celebration of his life; and while we miss him, we know that's where he wanted to be. he talked about being excited to go to help, and we knew the last year and a half without mommy was difficult for him, and that's where he wanted to be. we thank you for -- i was going to read a little thing that he had written, but i thought it might be nice that one of you boys read it because he dictated it. [laughter] yeah, i -- what's wrong with that? that's what's funny about that. [laughter] anyway, i thought it would be nice because we talked about what kind of man daddy was, and he actually dictated to timothy who he was and what kind of man he was and timmy wrote is down and it's on the back of the programs, so i thought it would be nice if you read it. [laughter] >> thank you. thank you. [applause] well, to quote steny hoyer and bill moyer, he changed our lives. daddy, if you maybe can hear in all these words, famously reluctant to define himself. maria said he gave all the credit to mommy or his faith. towards the end of his life we were insist tent to capture his message. i said one day at lunch, talk about yourself. i'll way it down. these are the words he said. i'm a man born and tried to live committed to being open to all people no malter their differences, nationality, race, religion, or geography. i'm full of energy and health. i'm a man who takes his responsibilities seriously, committed to do everything i can. i am a man who tries to be original and creative. i am a man unencumbered by the past. i feel free to invent. i believe the world was and is created by god. i believe the world is good beyond description. i believe that we human beings who seek life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness do so because god has given us these things. i believe they are a gift. i believe that we have a responsibility to god to do whatever we can to do good things for people, especially the poor. i believe in ideals. i believe that the world can be better if only we focus on achieving our ideals. i believe that any failure to achieve our ideals should only result in a rededication to them. i believe in faith, hope, and love. i believe that they have the greatest power. robert sargent shriver, j.r. 2000. [applause] [applause] >> please stand. let us pray together as jesus has taught us. our father who art in help, hallowed by your name, your kingdom -- give us this day our daily bread, and for give us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. blessed are those who died in the lord, let them rest from their labors for their good deeds go with them. eternal rest grant unto him, oh, lord, and let their light shine upon him, and may he rest in peace. amen. may the love of god and peace of our lord jesus christ bless and consul each one of us in the name of the father, the son, and of the holy spirit, amen. ♪ [inaudible conversations] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> tomorrow on c-span, a look at new members of the white house economic team with ab by phillip of "politico" and also how cities are forcing police and rescue policies. we talk about the obama administration's possibility of lifting ban on missionary tribunals. that's live starting at 7:eastern on c-span. >> on saturday, a town hall institution on u.s.-canada relations. >> former british prime minister tony blair appeared a sec time to clarify discrepancies from his testimony a year ago. there was memos that suggested mr. blair was aware of warnings concerning the legality of an invasion in iraq and the discussions within the british government on how to deal with saddam hussein. during the four hour hearing, he defends his actions leading up to the war. [inaudible conversations] >> i should like to start by welcoming our witness and those who have joined us at the conference as well as those who may be watching the hearing either on television or through the internet. we heard some six hours of evidence from mr. blair a year ago, and we have also heard from many other witnesses and have amassed a considerable body of documentary evidence. as i made clear in launching this round of hearings, there were a number of areas where we need to clarify what happened. we need to find the lessons to be learned, and to do that, we need to construct as reliable and accurate account as possible and reach our own conclusions. this morning, we want to concentrate on a number of issues and decisions, some strategic, some more detailed, by mr. blair's own recollections that are important. those issues include the way in which the decision to take military action was considered undebated within the government, our understanding what happened in iraq after saddam hussein was removed from power, and the u.k.'s preparations for our role in iraq. we shall also look at what happened after 2003 and in particular the increase in violence which resulted in the loss of so many lives. we ask mr. blair to provide a statement addressing a number of issues in advance of the hearing. our requests and mr. blair's statements are being published now. we are also publishing a number of documents or extracts from documents which are relevant to this morning's hearing. mr. blair's statement covers a great deal of ground and refers to many documents. we shall not be going through it line by line this morning, but we shall, of course, follow-up on further points if we wish. there are other matters that are important to the inquiries terms of reference of which we do not need to address in the hearing this morning. we shall not, for example, go over again the intelligence about saddam hussein's armor programs and the government east knowledge and understanding of those nor how that information was put into the public domain. as mr. blair's statement makes clear, he wishes to add a short summary of the lessons he thinks would be valuable for the future prime minister to know, and we ensure there is time at the end of the hearing for him to do so. now, i have said on every single occasion when we have held a hearing that we recognize witnesses give evidence based on their recollection of interests, and we, of course, check what we hear against the papers of which we have access, some of which are still coming in. i remind each witness on each occasion later to be asked to sign a transcript of evidence that his testimony given is truthful, fair, and accurate, and with that i ask sir gilbert martin to start. >> it was a critical importance and without parliament's approval, our troops could not participate in the invasion. in your speech, you drew an analogy with the 1930s, the moment you said when the czech was swallowed up by the nazis. this is when we should have acted. this is not the first time this was made. jack straw recalls the decent into war in february. this has enormous force with the british public. it also heightens perceptions of the level and imminence of the threat. in your book, "a journey" you say you regretted and almost took out that reference and the almost universal refusal as you put it for a long time to believe that hitler was a threat. can you tell us why you regretted saying that? >> i think i actually said in the speech in the house of commons on the 18th of march, it's not in front of me, but to be aware of comparisons, but there was one sense in which i think there is still a valid point to be made about how we perceive threat and that is in this sense. my view after september 11th is that our whole analysis of terrorist threat and the extreme itch had to change. at that point i was most focused on this that the single most important thing to me about september 11th as i said is that 3,000 people died, but if they could have killed 300,000 people, they would have. the single most important thing we face today still which is why i take a hard line view on iran is the risk of this new type of terrorism and extremism based on an ideological version of faith, particularly islam, combining with technology that allows them to kill people on a large scale. now, where i think the analogy is valid is in saying even though we may look at the world today and say, well, does it really mather? is iran that much of a threat? suppose we just let saddam carry on with it, would it have been such a problem? my anxiety is that, yes, we cannot take that risk. after september 11th the call claytive risk had to change fundamentally. in that sense in a way i would say there is an analogy, but you gt to be careful -- you got to be careful of bringing it out too broadly otherwise you make a point that suggests the circumstances of nazi germany is the same. i didn't mean to imply that. >> that's what you regretted? >> yes. i don't regret the basic point that i'm making which is that this is a time in which even though many people say this extremism can be managed, i personally don't think that's true. i think it has to be confronted and changed, and that is the fortune policy difference you see throughout this. i just read steven wahl's evidence to you. we are like in the mind and i have great respect for him, but i disagree with this point. there's two views in the world. one view is, look, this extremism, it's an entrustment on an otherwise manageable situation. don't overworry about itment don't provoke it. don't stimulate it. just manage the situation. the other view, my view, is that this thing is deep. it's potential to reek enormous and devastating damage is huge, and we have to confront it. now, if that is an echo of fascism in the 1930s, that's the echo, but it doesn't go broader than that. >> you explained the regime to be changed by force was not predetermined and if he backed down which you didn't expect him to do so, invasion would not be necessary. it was your decision to join american in using force and be prepared to use force ourselves. at what point did you take that decision? >> i think after september 11. i said in my statement before september, that w measuring d is going to take on a different meaning, and, of course, the americans had already a policy of regime change. that is a policy, in fact, made by president bill clinton, passed in 1998 following the military action we took against iraq with the u.k. in 1998. it was obviously on the agenda, and i was always going to make it clear and did make it clear we would be shoulder to shoulder in dealing with these threats, and how we would deal with it was an open question. that we were going to deal with it was clear from that moment on. >> right. the cab innocent paper on conditions of the military action which was issued on the 19th of july 2002, a version of which has appeared in the press, recorded that you told the president of crawford in april of 2002 united kingdom supports military action to bring about regime change provided certain conditions were met. was that a turning point in >> it was not a turning point, but all the way through we said this issue has to be dealt with. he comes back in compliance with resolutions or action will follow. just going back through the papers again for this, i think i can give more of a shape as to how this then evolved. so pre-9/11, we have a policy of containment. the sanctions are eroding. containment, they say, partially successful, but it doesn't mean he's not still developing his programs with his intent. after 9/11, the calculus risk changes. america has a policy of regime change, so they could have and some of the american system wanted to say right at that moment, we're going after saddam. i think there were a group of senators that wrote to president bush at the end of 2001 saying that's what should happen. the first thing was in april to say to the americans, look, we're with you in tackling this, however, we should do this by way of ultimatum. in other words, give them a chance to come back into compliance. then in july, we say to the americans, look, he should come back into compliance, but do it through the united nations, build an international coalition. now you got instead of action immediately, we've got ultimatum first, and then ultimatum with the u.n. sanctions, and that's really then where we came together for resolution 1441, and then even later, by the way, we tried to get another resolution with another ultimatum, but that's for another time. >> i'd like to turn to the involvement of your cabinet in these decisions. you told us last year that the options paper produced by the cabinet office in march 2002, a version of which, again, appeared in the press, was seen by you and the foreign defense secretaries and discussed by ministers. we've been unable to identify such a meetings, such a discussion, and it's not listed in the material that you prepared for the butler inquiry in 2004. can you identify when this march 2002 options paper was discussed? >> i know that there was a version of it that certainly went to the chancellor for example, but we had cabinet discussions. i don't know specifically on that paper, but what to do about iraq, and so, for example, the cabinet meetings, i think in march before crawford, for example, on the 7th of march, we set up our position on iraq in the cabinet minutes there. we say, it was important the united states did not appear to be agenting unilaterally, critically important to reinvigorate the peace process, and military action taken against the regime had to be effective. on the other hand, the iraqi regime was in clear breach under only gages under security resolutions, wmd programs posed a threat to peace. that's what we said there and went on to say how to deal with this in a proper way. >> my question is not what the cabinet discussed it -- >> i don't know the paper at the time. >> had that particular cabinet, all we can find that we're presented with is the parliamentary labor party paper that we produced shortly before. how did you expect your cabinet to take an informed view or have a discussion of the sort that you told us did take place without having papers and background information of the sort that were available to you? >> well, the cabinet as i said, the leading members did, but the rest of the cabinet, when we had these discussions and about iraq and i think all in all there were over 20 different cabinet discussions about it, i've heard it said occasion nailingly these discussions were not in detail. there were immense details and you can see that in the papers. the notion that the people were not debating it and discussing it, i can tell you, it was dominant as the issue of discussion in the cab innocent, but more than that, outside of the formal cabinet meetings, people talked about this the whole time. i can't i would go back and have a look again whether apart from the key cabinet ministers, others decided the option papers, but there was a discussion going on in depth. in march and april and may, june, and july, all of this was being conversed broadly and pretty deeply. >> without access to the documents, the options paper is important. this is not something which they were able as it were to add to their contribution to the debate. the options paper and really it said two things. it said you can either go forth in payment. we can't guarantee that that's successful. you will probably continue to develop his programs and be a threat, but nonetheless, that is an option. another option is regime change. right. now there's nothing in those papers where there wasn't surfaced as part of the discussion. the discussion all the way

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