All language subtitles for The Tony Blair Story 2026 S01E02 720p WEB-DL x264 BONE

I read somewhere that
there's one film

that had more of an influence on you
than any other. Yeah.

Schindler's List.

Can you tell me about that
and the impact it had on you?

Well, Schindler's List
is a remarkable

and important film in many
different respects,

but the thing that impacted me
most was...

..this...

..concept of the camp commandant

and the normality that

in one sense he was living
with his girlfriend and all of that,

and then just the sheer brutality

that was being visited
upon the people.

GUNSHOT
As this awful thing is happening,

there are people just
standing about.

You know, they're looking at it.
They're knowing it happens

and they're not doing anything
about it.

You cannot be a bystander -

that has been a very important part
of my politics,

and it can lead you
to right judgments

and wrong judgments but it's,

you know, it's not just your job
to look after your country,

to look after the people around you,
it's also...

You owe some responsibility
to the bigger world.

BACKGROUND CHATTER
He's coming.

It's June 2001.

Tony Blair has just won a second
massive general election victory.

Prime Minister, are you pleased
to be back in Downing Street?

How does it feel? How does it feel?

Public opinion loved him,
the press loved him,

the unions were quiet.

There were very few constraints on
his ability to do what he wanted.

MIXED CHATTER

I was the most senior civil servant
available to him,

and inside, I was bearing the briefs
for incoming Prime Minister Blair,

and I said to him, "Prime Minister,

"congratulations on this
amazing victory.

"You should be very proud of it,

"you've worked for it for years
and you've done well.

"You are now at the moment of your
greatest moment of power.

"It's going to be up to you
to decide

"how do you use your power
and what to do with it."

And he said, "Gosh, OK, right."

The point I was making to him is,

"You will never be this strong
again," and he took it in.

The new US President George Bush
arrives at Chequers

with congratulations
for Blair's latest victory.

Blair is determined to build
a close relationship with

the most powerful man in the world.

Tell me about Tony's relationship
with him

and what you perceived of that.
How did it work?

I can remember when we...

Because obviously we knew Bill
and Hillary

even before Tony became
Prime Minister,

from when he became
Leader of the Opposition,

and obviously we have similar
views in many ways.

Then, you know,
the Republicans come in

with George Bush,
who we know nothing about.

And when I didn't know them,

I was very apprehensive about,
did we have anything in common?

What I did know, and what Tony made
perfectly clear to me, is...

..it was my duty
to make sure that we got on.

Over dinner, they discuss
the biggest threats to the world.

Bush outlines his plans for
a nuclear missile shield

to protect the United States
of America...

..though Cherie can't help
but point out a flaw in his plan.

I simply expressed the view that
it didn't really matter what you had

if you had an
individual who was determined,

an individual terrorist, who was
determined to blow themselves up.

You know, a nuclear shield, or a...

Cannot really protect you.

Tony... Mr Blair...

Two months on, Blair is in
Brighton, preparing to make

a major speech in support of
the Euro at the TUC conference.

We're in The Grand Hotel...

..and we're in a room where
Tony was writing his speech.

We were quiet. We were just getting
on with our own work

because he didn't want any noise,
but we had the TV on over there.

Have some very, very sketchy details
reaching us here at Sky Central

that happened within
the last few moments.

He said, "Turn it off, Alastair."

He said, "Anji, go down
and keep an eye on it."

And as you can see,

I don't know if you just saw
the plane flying by.

There's another explosion.

Another plane.
We just saw a plane flying by...

And we see the second plane go in...

..and our Special Branch
jump up out of their chairs

because they know this is not
an accident any more.

APPLAUSE

Bill, Congress.

As Bill has just informed you...

..there have been the most terrible,
shocking events taking place in

the United States of America.

Delegates, I hope you will
understand,

I will now return to London.

They're deciding how we should
travel back to London,

and they decided in the end
that it would be safer

for us to go on a train,

because if we were travelling in our
normal convoy,

that's easily spotted from the air.

And I can remember Tony just
sitting there

with that look on his face,
that look I know so well,

and just staring out the window.

He had spent that summer reading
the Quran.

His mind would have been going
at 5,000 miles an hour.

Tony wrote this long, long

list of things we were going to
need to do when we got back.

Protection around buildings,
airspace...

Dozens and dozens and dozens
of things that we had to do.

When to speak to Bush,

say that they'll be feeling like
Pearl Harbor,

because they're not used
to being attacked like this -

they'll be feeling like that.

Bush will be under enormous pressure
to do things very, very quickly,

and will be under pressure
to use this

to take out all sorts of different
enemies around the world.

OK, nice and calmly out the front
now, ladies and gents, please.

Can you tell me why we're
being evacuated?

Can we go across the road?
Has there been a security alert?

I can't tell you at this time, OK?

RICHARD: We got hold of Blair -

he said, "Well, how are
the Americans going to react?"

His immediate reaction,
without blinking.

"How do we stop the Americans doing
anything stupid immediately?"

I was at Number 10 when the Prime
Minister arrived back from Brighton,

and I saw this figure stride
very purposefully.

And there was something in
the stride and the gait

that said that he recognised
the world had changed.

And he is a figure who, I think,

always wanted to change history.

This mass terrorism is
the new evil in our world.

We therefore here, in Britain...

..stand shoulder to shoulder

with our American friends
in this hour of tragedy...

..and we, like them...

..will not rest until this evil
is driven from our world.

The number of people missing in
the rubble

of the World Trade Center
has jumped to 6,333.

No-one has emerged alive
in more than a week.

Mr Blair? Mr Blair? Mr Blair?

Days after 9/11,
Blair is in New York,

heading to a service paying respect
to British victims.

It's important to recognise 9/11,
at the time,

was this dramatic event.

It was obvious
America was going to act,

and it was obvious they were
going to act with a lot of force.

If we weren't prepared to stand
with them at that moment,

and in what they thought was their
moment of immense national peril,

then if we ever had
a moment of national peril,

why should they stand with us?
It wasn't just a moral question,

it was primarily a question of,

it was fundamentally in
Britain's national interest

to be with America at this point.

SIREN WAILS
I can only imagine what it must have

been like for people in New York,

but my father's generation
knew what it was like.

They went through the blitz.

They know what it's like to suffer
this type of tragedy and attack...

..and there was one country
and one people

that stood by us at that time...

..and that country was America,

and those people were the
American people.

And as you stood side by side
with us then,

we stand side by side with you now.

As it's established that
the mastermind behind the attacks,

Osama Bin Laden,
is operating in Afghanistan...

CAMERA CLICKS

..President Bush prepares to reveal
his response to the world.

CAMERA CLICKS

The President was going to give
an address to the nation

and Prime Minister Blair said,
"I'm coming."

And the President said,
"Tony, you don't have to do that."

He said, "No, I have to do that.
I'm coming."

And then the President said, "Do you
want to speak? Do you want...?"

And he said,
"No, I Just want to be there."

And he came.

And I told the Prime Minister
that that was a moment when

the special relationship
really felt special.

And on behalf of the
American people,

I thank the world for
its outpouring of support.

America will never forget the sounds

of our national anthem
playing at Buckingham Palace.

America has no truer friend than
Great Britain.

Thank you for coming, friend.

Our war on terror begins
with Al-Qaeda...

..but it does not end there.

Either you are with us,

or you are with the terrorists.

APPLAUSE

ANJI: After we'd been to America,

it had been agreed that Tony would
go on a sort of world tour,

making sure that everybody was
on board for taking on Bin Laden.

Tony Blair was the first
European leader

to arrive in Brussels straight from
his session in Washington.

The key tonight - a message of
unwavering support for America

for whatever she does
to strike back.

RICHARD WILSON: He did have
a very strong sense

of his own mission in the world,

and he wanted to reconcile
his ambition

with what was morally right.

We flew to Moscow,
where he went off on his own,

much to our concern -

because we didn't like him going off
by himself -

to see Putin, and they played
billiards in Putin's dacha.

When we're battling something like

the issue of international
terrorism,

but also on many other issues too,

we need Russia there as
a partner and a friend.

Blair travels nearly 50,000 miles
on more than 30 flights.

He meets more than 50 world leaders,

each time trying to persuade them

to stand shoulder to shoulder
with America.

Some Arab countries,
they are quite apprehensive.

No western leader is on record
to say that

no Arab countries will be targeted.

Well, I think there are two
different phases to this action.

The first phase is to deal with
Osama bin Laden, his network,

the Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan,
and these camps that are there,

where they're training literally
thousands of people

to go out and export terror
right round the world,

including, incidentally,
in the Middle East.

But then the second phase
is to say,

well, what are the aspects

of international terrorism
that we need to deal with?

Again, you evaded the question.

You're not telling me whether
an Arab country is targeted,

whether it's Iraq, Syria, or even
Iran or Sudan in the future.

But what I'm saying to you is that
no country is going to be targeted

unless there is evidence
that it is doing something wrong.

Well, with 9/11,
two things collided.

One was his closeness to America...

..and secondly,
this Manichean view of the world

as a struggle between good and evil,
and these two hit.

These were two very, very strongly
Christian-believing leaders

in a way that I can't think that
we've had before.

And the fact that they were
going to launch

what is described in
the Middle East as a crusade

is a curious coincidence.

Does the fact that George Bush
and you are both Christians

make it easier for you to view these
conflicts in terms of good and evil?

I don't think so, no. I think that
whether you are a Christian

or you're not a Christian,
you can try and perceive

what is good and what is evil.

You don't pray together,
for example?

No, we don't pray together,
Jeremy, no.

Why do you smile?

Because why do you ask me
the question?

Because I'm trying to find out how
you feel about it, I mean... Yeah.

MUFFLED LAUGHTER
Possibly.

To understand
Tony Blair's Christianity,

you have to go back to Oxford
University in the early 1970s.

Tony came up to Oxford,
he immediately made friends...

..and I remember
being in his room once

and there was a Bible
lying on the table,

and I said,
"Oh, are you reading that?"

He said, "Yes, I am."

"Are you going to church?"
I think I put it like that -

"Are you going to church?"
He said, "Yes."

And I didn't really discuss it
with him.

I'd always known that he...

There was a part of him,
a spiritual side to Tony.

In his second year at Oxford,
Blair is confirmed into the church

after meeting an older student -
Peter Thomson, an Australian priest.

PETER: We used to have these
marvellous discussions

that would go for hours -
you know, cigarettes and coffee.

And we'd get into religion
and politics as one.

He could have easily gone
into the church.

People often say that he speaks in
a kind of messianic way.

How do you feel about that?

He tends to preach a little bit.

I can understand what people
are saying about that,

in fact I don't see it that way.

I think he speaks in
a more prophetic way rather than

a philosophical or analytical way,

and it's about time politicians
started to do that.

Peter was probably the single
biggest influence in my life,

I should think,

and I still think about him
virtually every day.

That meant that my...

..Christianity and my politics
were linked, not in the way -

because whenever you talk about
religion and politics,

people can confuse it -
not in the sense that

I felt some political mission about
Christianity, as it were,

but if you're going to do politics,

do it for a reason that's bigger
than you,

that's got something to do
with belief.

Have you climbed up to the top?
Yes, I have, darling. Mm. Yes.

Meeting Peter really inspired Tony.

Talking to him about Christ as
a radical who fought for the poor,

who was engaged with the poor,

who fought for what was right,

I think was very much something
that appealed to Tony.

I mean, I think if you are
a person of faith,

it does shape your worldview.

The idea of your beliefs being
something that resulted in action

was what he brought
to my philosophy.

In other words,
your religious belief

wasn't something that shut
you away from the world,

but something that meant that you
had to go out and act.

CAMERA CLICKS, DISTANT APPLAUSE

Within a month of 9/11,
Blair sends British troops

to join the American-led war
in Afghanistan...

..and lays out his vision
for a new world order.

Out of the shadow of this evil
should emerge lasting good.

Whatever the dangers of
the action we take,

the dangers of inaction
are far, far greater.

To the Afghan people,
we make this commitment -

we will not walk away as
the outside world has done

so many times before there.

And I want to make it a fight
for justice, too.

Justice not only to punish
the guilty,

but justice to bring those same
values of democracy

and freedom to people round
the world.

ROBERT HARRIS: There was a sense
that he was an instrument of God

for goodness on the Earth...

..that there was a battle between
good and evil.

This seems to me a dangerous way for
any individual to live their life,

but for a politician,
it's quite dangerous

because the world doesn't really
divide in that Manichean way.

The war in Afghanistan begins.

Once again,
American bombs rained down on

the Taliban front line near Kabul.

The Taliban is quickly toppled,
but Bin Laden escapes.

One month on,
Blair flies into Afghanistan

under cover of darkness so as
to avoid potential missile fire.

MIXED CHATTER

As he greets the new Afghan leader,

Blair is told to stay
on the red carpet

as the airport hasn't yet been fully
cleared of land mines.

BAND PLAYS MUSIC

CHANTING

Many people were saying this action
was a mistake,

would be opposed by people
in Afghanistan,

that we would make
the situation worse,

that the whole of the region
would be destabilised.

Who would have guessed that today
we have come

a far greater distance than many
might have anticipated?

Thank you very much. Handshake?
Well, yes, plenty of that. Yeah.

Is that fine now?

I think, at that stage,
we all thought,

"This is great, Tony,
you're keeping everyone together."

We were proud of him,
and he did the right thing.

And then Blair came out and said,

"We're going to eliminate opium.

"It's the cause of all the heroin
addicts on the streets of Britain."

You can't just tell people who,

they grow that because that's the
only way to make a living,

that you're just
going to eliminate it,

you have to offer them a better life
and an alternative way.

And, of course, then he volunteered
that Britain would take on Helmand,

the most dangerous place
in Afghanistan.

And a lot of our soldiers lost their
limbs and so on,

and that was him being brave
with other people's bodies in a

not-very-well-thought-out way. So...

..this Blair that was
constraining America

and being sensible about post 9/11,
about Afghanistan,

then became the sort of
gung-ho militarist Blair

that didn't think things through

and made announcements
that weren't sensible.

And you began to lose faith.

Well, I mean, it's not faith,
you know.

He's not the Pope,
you don't say, you know...

But I became critical,
in my own head.

He was making mistakes.
It was going wrong.

It's April 2002.

Blair arrives at Crawford,
President Bush's ranch in Texas,

to discuss the next phase
in the war on terror.

Bush has plans to get rid of the
Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Only that regime had actually used
weapons of mass destruction...

..and the link for the US was,
these terrorist groups,

if they managed to get hold of
weapons of mass destruction,

then instead of 3,000 people dying,
it'll be 30 or 300,000,

and therefore we've got to deal
with this issue.

And, you know, there's a lot of...

So much has been written
and talked about it,

but it really did start with that.

And for me there were
two considerations.

One, was it better to leave
Saddam or remove him,

for the security of the world? And
number two, be with America or not.

The situation with Saddam Hussein
and his weapons

is complex and murky.

It's known that, previously,
he'd gassed his own people.

The family living here had fled
to their cellar

when they heard
the first explosion.

They would have been unaware
that the lethal gases

would penetrate every part
of their home.

Bush and Blair now fear his weapons
of mass destruction

could end up in
the hands of terrorists.

He claims he no longer has these
weapons, but is he lying?

CAMERAS CLICK

We'll see everybody tomorrow.

Mr President, will the secretary...?

As I said, we'll see you tomorrow.
Sounds good.

I know you can't wait
and neither can I.

THEY LAUGH
OK.

And neither can
the Prime Minister for that matter.

How you doing, Ari? Good, sir.

You're looking just like a cowboy.

TOM: President George Bush himself,

Iraq was not just a global issue,

but a personal issue because they'd
tried to kill his father.

And George Bush
is someone who holds a grudge,

takes things personally.

And President Bush
is someone who puts

an awful lot of weight
on personal relationships.

The Prime Minister recognised that,

and therefore the best
strategy in influencing

President Bush's response

was be seen to be supportive
to President Bush.

We used to sit there, and

Tony and George Bush used to go
for a walk...

..and you could see Bush's
people hated it. They hated it. Why?

Well, because they'd come back
an hour later or whatever -

having wandered around the woods -

they'd come back and, you know,
President Bush would say,

"So this is where Tony
and I have got to,"

and Cheney and Rumsfeld were
always horrified probably!

You know, they were just like,
"But that wasn't the plan.

"That's not where this is supposed
to be."

So an awful lot of politics,
in the end,

is about people and relationships,

and ultimately, that's the way that
you get movement from leaders.

Good morning.

We appreciate the rain that the
Prime Minister brought with him.

SOME LAUGHTER
And so do the other farmers

and ranchers in the area, Prime
Minister, thanks for bringing it.

My pleasure, George.

The Prime Minister and I, of course,
talked about Iraq.

I explained that
the policy of my government is

the removal of Saddam

and that all options are on
the table.

I can say that...

..any sensible person looking at
the position

of Saddam Hussein
and asking the question...

..would the region, the world,

and not least the ordinary
Iraqi people...

..be better off without
the regime of Saddam Hussein?

The only answer anyone could give
to that question would be yes.

John Sergeant, ITN.

Yes. John Sergeant, ITN.

Fine lad. Prime Minister,

we've heard the President say what
his policy is directly about

Saddam Hussein,
which is to remove him -

that is the policy of
the American administration.

Could I ask you whether that is now

the policy of
the British Government?

Well, John, you know,
it has always been our policy

that Iraq would be a better place
without Saddam Hussein.

Maybe I should be
a little less direct

and be a little more nuanced

and say we support regime change.

It's certainly the policy
of my administration, and...

..I think regime change sounds
a lot more civil, doesn't it?

Yeah.
What Europeans have a problem with

about expanding any war on terror
to Iraq is linkage.

They can see a linkage between
Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan,

they can't see a
direct linkage to Saddam Hussein.

Would you accept that there isn't
a direct linkage and how, therefore,

do you make the moral case? First
of all, I wouldn't accept that,

but can't they see linkage between
somebody who's willing

to murder his own people...

..and the danger of him possessing
weapons of mass destruction?

The thing I admire about this
Prime Minister is he doesn't need

a poll or a focus group
to convince him

the difference between right
and wrong.

Thank you all. Thank you. Good job.

So, after Crawford, Blair
writes Bush a letter which begins,

"I will be with you..."
"I will be with you, whatever."

What does it say?
"I will be with you, whatever."

I saw it.
I saw the day it went, yeah.

It was not his best moment...

..and...

..I don't know quite
to this day why he sent it.

The ambiguity in his relationships,

which he brilliantly used
to good effect

as he did over the
Good Friday Agreement,

could also lead people to drawing
from what he was saying,

what they wanted to hear.

And my anxiety was that this
would be seen as

a kind of blank cheque
by the United States,

and that the consequence of that

would be that our leverage
would be reduced.

You know, people just put
far too much emphasis

on the precise wording.

George... Hang on, you're a lawyer -
you know the importance of words.

Yeah, I know, of course,
the importance of words...

Didn't that commit you to a slippery
slope that you couldn't get off?

No, of course not.

I was actually trying
to persuade the Americans

to do something different, right?

I wanted us to go through
a UN process,

I wanted to try and rally the world
as far as possible.

I thought it was possible that we
might get Saddam

to agree to the conditions
that we wanted,

and I knew it was important...

..that President Bush felt I was
with him on the essential issue.

But would there have been anything
that the Americans had proposed

or even done that would have
made you withdraw that support?

Well, if they hadn't gone through
the UN process

it would have been extremely
difficult for us, but they did.

Was that a commitment that we were
going to do

whatever the Americans wanted?
Of course not.

But I was going to be
with them in dealing with Saddam

because I believed that was
necessary and I still do.

Blair persuades Bush not
to invade Iraq straight away...

On behalf of the General Assembly,

I have the honour to welcome to the
United Nations, Mr George W Bush.

APPLAUSE

..but to use the UN to give
Saddam an ultimatum -

give up any weapons
of mass destruction you have

and let inspectors in
to look for them,

or face the consequences.

We've accomplished much
in the last year,

in Afghanistan and beyond.

We have much yet to do
in Afghanistan and beyond.

Back home,
Blair is under growing pressure

to show that Iraq is
an imminent threat to the world.

Can you, here, today,
offer one piece of evidence

that action is necessary?

Well, one piece of evidence is
that they're in breach of...

..23 of the demands
that the UN has made

in respect of their weapons -

chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons.

The Americans, in raising
this issue, are not wrong,

and the reason why our place is
beside them

is not because of some misplaced
allegiance

or because of blind loyalty,

it's because it's the
right thing to do.

RICHARD: His commitment to America
and to being with America

was much stronger than
I had understood,

and I went to see him...

..and I said to him,

"I am very worried about
what you're doing on Iraq.

"My advice to you

"is you should only go into Iraq
if you have evidence

"of the weapons, and support
of the United Nations."

"Oh, Richard," he said,

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do
anything stupid."

"We can buy off the Russians,
they need money.

"The Germans will be onside.

"The French will be difficult
at the last minute,

"but they'll give in.
It'll be all right."

I think he wanted
to carry his dream further in Iraq.

I think he thought he would end up,
you know,

with a very popular invasion,
the fall of a much-hated tyrant...

..people throwing flowers
over the troops.

He could go back to the issue which
still was absolutely in his mind,

and which he wanted, which was
membership of the Euro,

that we would enter the Euro,

we would have a bridge across
the Atlantic to Bush,

who'd be grateful to him,

and he'd be in a very powerful
position in the world.

That was the ambition, that was the
dream, that was the inner vision.

Blair is seeing MI6 intelligence
that suggests

that Saddam Hussein does have
weapons of mass destruction.

Blair now gets his Director
of Communications,

Alastair Campbell,
to go to MI6 and the spies

to help them present their evidence.

What about the criticism, though,

that it was presented with
a certainty that it didn't warrant?

Well, listen, I understand

lots of people made that criticism.

What some people in
the intelligence community will say

is that you can never be certain,
but I would argue

there was an ultra-caution

to the whole thing.

To have the chief spin doctor
of a government helping to edit

and tinker with
an intelligence dossier,

I think it's just beyond the pale.

The whole Blairite obsession
with spin,

of which Alastair Campbell
was the prima donna,

led to a dossier that was false,
hyped up and inaccurate.

Yes, you can set it against
what's followed,

and the failure to find the weapons
of mass destruction programme,

and say, "Well, that was bullshit,"

but based upon the intelligence

and the assessment of intelligence
that was going into that document,

I certainly don't accept
the charge of deception,

and I don't accept even that
we exaggerated.

Long delayed, much anticipated,

the dossier had journalists
sprinting to deliver its message -

Iraq's weapons threaten
the world's stability.

His missiles could hit Cyprus.

An attack could be 45 minutes away.

CLARE: I think he
made up his mind early on

that he was going with America

and it was a question of how
to manipulate his way through.

I'm sure he thought he was doing it
for a good cause...

..but, you know, human frailty
says we can all do that -

convince ourselves that we did it
for the right reasons.

Are we going to war, Prime Minister?

TOM: We didn't have black-and-white
evidence to present to the public...

..so what we had
to present was our judgment.

Not just the material
contained in the dossier,

but also the material he'd seen
over years.

But he himself said that his views

were based on a conviction,

a belief that that was the case.

Ark Royal heads the biggest
task force

deployed since the Falklands War.

It's January 2003,

and British forces are headed
to the Middle East.

Bit worried and nervous about my dad
and hope he's gonna be all right.

In the last two months,

UN inspectors have found no weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq...

..but Blair is convinced
Saddam Hussein

is giving them the run-around...

..and now Blair's facing growing
opposition to the prospect of war.

I was on a speaking tour
of Muslim countries

about why we all needed
to sort of come together.

The reaction I got
was pretty darn strong.

People questioned our motives.

I came back,

we sat outside on the
terrace at Number 10,

and I said, "Look, you know, I'm
worried here that the Arab world,

"the Muslim world, will feel that
this is some sort of fresh

"sort of crusaders that
we're embarking on here.

"You know, there could be, if we
played it wrongly,

"quite a backlash."

He was not really convinced -

said I'd been spending far too long
with the wrong people.

Sometimes with Tony...

..he thinks that leadership is
so important

and being decisive is so important

that he sometimes becomes

a little tin-eared, you know,
to what other people are saying.

You know, "Careful here."
"Think of that."

"Bring this into the balance
a bit more."

And that's what I felt at the time.

CAR HORN BEEPS

Marching through the streets
of London...

WHISTLE PEEPS, CHANTING
..sending a message to Tony Blair

and George W Bush -
"Not in my name."

ALL: Don't attack.
Don't attack Iraq.

Don't attack. Don't attack Iraq.

When you think of Tony Blair,

what words spring to mind?

I think he's a man in denial,
actually.

On the day of the march...

..it was quite emotional.

I thought, "Wow,
we've mobilised these people.

"Can the political establishment
ignore this?"

They just felt so angry that their
country was going to war

without their approval.

CHANTING AND CHEERING

It's the scale of the protest
that is unprecedented -

a million people.

It's the biggest rally ever
on British soil.

Thousands more deaths in Iraq
will set off

a spiral of conflict, of hate,
of misery, of desperation,

that will fuel the wars,
the conflict, the terrorism,

the depression, and the misery
of future generations.

CHEERING

CHERIE: You could hear the protests
in 10 Downing Street.

PROTESTORS: Don't attack.
Don't attack Iraq.

Don't attack. Don't attack Iraq.

It was a very strange time.

I think it was hard for my children
to come in every day,

and people were standing there
calling their father

a murderer and a liar.

I don't know what I would have felt
if I was...

..out there rather
than in 10 Downing Street,

but what I did know was that when
Tony said,

as he absolutely believed,

that Saddam Hussein had
these weapons of mass destruction,

he told me that was the case.

I absolutely know that that's what
he thought was true.

WHISTLES PEEP

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: The morning of
the big protests,

we were in Scotland.

He said that morning
he'd not slept.

He said that he was feeling...

..worried.
APPLAUSE

I think he felt frustrated.

A lot of the things that
Saddam Hussein had done in the past

were just sort of being
pushed aside.

Not least his use
of chemical weapons,

not least the torture chambers,
not least the executions -

all the stuff that he did.

That didn't really have a big enough
space within the public debate.

And I do remember meetings that
he had with Iraqis

who were really pushing him,

saying, "I know how difficult it is,
you've got to keep going.

"What we have lived with is
an abomination."

Ridding the world of Saddam
would be an act of humanity.

It is leaving him there
that is inhumane.

Did anything, though,
give you pause for thought? Yeah!

A million people on the streets,
Nelson Mandela...

Yeah, of course! All of... But you
see, in the end, the problem,

and it's one of the things you
learn about leaders and leadership,

is that ultimately you sit in
the seat,

you've got to take the decision,

and, you know,
you've got to stand by it.

WHISTLES PEEP, HORNS BEEP

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
How did it affect him?

I think it made him more
conscious...

..of the need to keep trying
to explain why he was doing it.

Did it ever cause him to doubt
the doing of it?

Not that I saw. Not that I saw.

Blair doesn't waver,

but he agrees with his team
to embark on a new media strategy.

Well, I mean
the masochism strategy -

I would say that was
the period when he was

most fed up with the team,

because we were sending him forth

to see, largely, kind of,
mothers of service people

who'd lost their lives or
lost their limbs or whatever,

and it was grim.

And it was really grim, but we
felt he had to talk to them.

He had to be seen to talk to them.

You said that you were really keen
to go down the UN route,

but quite clearly,
you don't give a stuff.

We're going to go to war anyway,
that's what we all feel.

Well, why did I go through
the United Nations last year, then?

I don't know, a fig leaf perhaps.
Well, how is it a fig leaf?

I've got to get the agreement
of those other countries.

But you're not going to now, are
you? You're going to do it anyway.

No, I'm not saying
I'm going to do it anyway.

You're still prepared to risk all
the good work that you've done

on this one issue.

Well, Debra...
In the days before the invasion,

he's questioned by a mother
whose son was killed on 9/11.

I lost my only child

in the World Trade Center.

Now, for the last 18 months,
my pain has been unbearable.

You are a man that has come across
as a genuine man,

a family-orientated man,

a man who's not only a Christian,
but a church-going Christian.

Now, to me, Mr Blair,
what you're going to do -

and I'm sure you're going to it,
you and Mr Bush -

you're going to go
and now bomb Iraq?

You don't know how many people like
me that's going to suffer so much.

How many innocent victims are you
going to kill?

And how many people are

going to suffer like I've suffered?
APPLAUSE

But on the...
No, Mr Blair, don't do it.

I'm doing it because I think
it's the right thing to do,

and I hope, even at this stage,
we can avoid conflict, actually.

But if this goes badly, you're
finished, really, aren't you?

Well, let's wait and see,
Trevor, shall we, about that?

As to whether it goes badly.
Thank you. Thank you.

While the diplomats
discuss deadlines,

the American and British troops
are ready and waiting for war.

With America ready to attack,
Blair is on a mission.

He wants world leaders
to sign another UN resolution,

giving a clearer authorisation
for war.

I remember talking to
President Mubarak at the time.

He said, "I trained as an
air force pilot in Baghdad,

"I know what the Iraqis are like,

"and your invasion of Iraq
will create not one,

"but 100 Bin Ladens."

What surprised me even more
was my American counterpart,

who was a good friend,
obviously, David Welch,

saying to me very privately,

"John, your service and our services

"have been looking for this
WMD for the last ten years.

"The Russians and the French -
we've all been looking for it

"and we haven't found it.
Maybe there isn't any."

Everyone agrees Saddam is a threat,

everyone agrees that he
must be disarmed,

otherwise he poses a real danger...

But it soon becomes clear
that Jacques Chirac,

the French President, is a problem.

Privately, he had given Blair
some personal advice.

He said, "If you go to war in Iraq,
in the future

"you will not be able to look
your baby son Leo in the eye."

With Chirac against,
the UN resolution cannot pass...

..so Blair has to decide

whether to go ahead
with America or change course.

Before taking the decision,
he has a secret meeting

with an old friend at his country
retreat, Chequers.

I felt terrible for him because...

..he had established
a good relationship with Bush.

He realised that he couldn't
get what he tried to do,

which is a brief extension
of the deadline...

..so that all the inspections
could be completed.

The Bush administration
was ready to go to war

and thought it was important,

and the rest of
the world disagreed with them -

almost everybody did.

So when you're caught
in the middle...

..and you want to maintain
your unique relationship

with the United States,

and you want to support
European unity, not take it apart...

..you wind up...

..taking the best of two
unattractive alternatives.

I didn't believe it was...

..critical to our position
in the world,

our credibility
in the war on terror,

all that kind of stuff -
I didn't believe that.

So he was in a pickle, and...

..he did what he thought
was right...

..and I think he still thinks he did
the right thing.

Do you?

I don't know what I would have done
under the circumstances

if I'd been
Prime Minister of the UK.

SALLY: I think he was incredibly
disappointed

because he really had fought
for a second resolution,

but in the end, he still
felt he had to take the decision.

And he said, "I am going
to press ahead with this.

"But if you're not... You, Sally,
you and any number of people

"don't think that's right and don't,
you know, don't want to do that,

"I would completely
understand that."

CHERIE: So many decisions
as Prime Minister are 50/50.

You have to choose.

But once Tony has chosen, he's...

..very skilled at making people
think that

obviously it was never 50/50 -
that was the obvious choice...

..and it stems from his strength of
character and his belief in himself.

Is there sometimes, though,
a danger of overconfidence?

I'm a great believer in confidence.

Blair now stakes everything
on a vote on the war in parliament.

If he loses, he'll resign.

JEREMY: We had the final meeting
of those of us who were

strongly opposed
to military action in Iraq.

I said,
"Very short, very simple, Tony...

"..why are we doing this?"

"Jeremy, understand this -

"we're doing this because
it's the right thing to do."

And then left the room.

I think he invested so much in it.

There'd been such
a build-up of troops in the area,

he felt, at that point,
he couldn't just back off.

I think he'd got himself
into a messianic trench.

He was going to do it.

CHANTING

The stakes could barely be higher.

The Prime Minister warning his party
he will not want to lead it

if they do not back the war.

There was the concern that maybe
Blair's government would go down.

The calls at that point
with the President

became about whether
or not it was worth it

for Prime Minister Blair
to take a vote

and possibly collapse
his government,

or would there be some other way
for Britain to be involved?

PROTESTORS CHANT

CHERIE: He was very conscious
that this could mean

that he would no longer
be Prime Minister...

..and that it would mean
a huge disruption for our family.

And so he did sit down
the three oldest ones,

who had been affected at school -
because they're teenagers by now -

and obviously in our home -

because they were aware of
the debate that was going on -

that we might all have to move out
by the end of the week

if he lost the vote.

The decision you made
to join them in war in Iraq -

did you have any doubts about it?

Look, I knew it was gonna be
immensely difficult, and...

..that's why I tried
to avoid it for a long time.

Even up until the very last minute,

I was trying to find
a way that we could maybe secure

the removal of Saddam
a different way -

that you could organise it
differently, do it differently -

but in the end it was impossible

and so you come to the crunch point
and it's this or it's that,

you've got to decide where you
stand, and that's where I stood.

Blair is about to face the biggest
parliamentary vote of his life.

We now come to the main business -
the Prime Minister.

ALL: Hear, hear!

This is a tough choice indeed -

to stand British troops down
now and turn back,

or to hold firm to
the course that we have set,

and I believe passionately we must
hold firm to that course.

MIXED CHATTER

Confidence is the key to prosperity,

and insecurity spreads
like contagion.

The key today is stability
and order,

the threat is chaos and disorder.

I've written quite a lot of novels
about prime ministers and wartime.

British prime ministers
traditionally tried

to keep us out of wars.

This is the only time that
I can think of that we've had

a very articulate former lawyer
advocating a war,

trying, in effect, to sell it
to the House of Commons,

his party and the country.

This is extraordinary
and unprecedented.

And all the talents one observed in
Tony Blair that one warmed to

and admired were turned into,
what seems to me,

to have been a much darker purpose.

I beg to move the motion.

MIXED YELLING

Order!

Order.

Blair wins,

and in less than 36 hours,
the war will begin.

Robert Harris told us that Iraq
was the only time he could think of

that a British Prime Minister
had persuaded

the House of Commons to go to war.

What do you think about that?

Well, it hadn't always been
the tradition

that you put these things to a vote
in the House of Commons, but we did.

But it was... The essence is that
it was a war of choice,

not of necessity.
Well, that's a matter of opinion.

You know, it depends on what
you think is necessary at the time.

I mean, all wars are wars of choice.

In a sense, you can say,
"I choose to do it,"

"I choose not to do it," but...

Well, Churchill
didn't have a choice.

Well, there would have been people
at the time who said he did,

but fortunately,
he made the right choice.

BILL: After he did it,

you can't fool around with this.

If you send troops into harm's way,
you got to win.

And so a lot of people were
offended that he seemed

so determined during
the course of the Iraq conflict,

but if you're going to do something
like that, you have to try to win.

LOUD BANG

Blair and Bush broadcast directly
to the Iraqi people.

This is George W Bush.
At this moment,

the regime of Saddam Hussein
is being removed from power,

and the future of your country

will soon belong to you.

LOUD RUMBLE

Our enemy is Saddam and his regime,
not the Iraqi people.

Our forces are friends...

..and liberators of the
Iraqi people, not your conquerors.

So, it is in the spirit
of friendship...

..and goodwill
that we now offer our help.

Thank you.

JOHN: I was in Cairo and
Number 10 called me

and said, "We need someone
on the ground in Baghdad.

"The Prime Minister's concerned
about level of grip on the ground.

"Could you please go there?"

I arrived -
it was complete disorder.

YELLING AND CHEERING

Saddam is swiftly removed
from power...

..but in Baghdad, crime and looting
become widespread.

Revenge attacks between Iraqis
are common.

GUNFIRE

GUNFIRE

It was total chaos.

No real planning
had gone into the aftermath.

The Americans were sitting,
hunkered down in their tanks

and armoured vehicles

with reflective sunglasses
and heavy helmets on

with no engagement
with the Iraqi people at all.

They just assumed that once
American forces had toppled Saddam,

then the Iraqi exiles would come in,

take over and everything
would be hunky-dory.

Well, it turned out to be completely
different from that.

GUNFIRE

Soon after Saddam
is removed from power,

Blair arrives in
the Iraqi city of Basra,

where British troops are in control.

The streets of Basra may be filled
with rubbish,

but it's in the water
that the real problem lies.

Doctors here have identified
the symptoms of cholera

in at least 17 people.

WOMAN SPEAKS ARABIC

# Twinkle, twinkle, little star

# How I wonder what you are

# Up above the world so high

# Like a diamond in the sky. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

MIXED CHATTER

Obviously,
Blair wanted to come to Iraq

because he'd invested so much in it.

Thank you! You OK? Yeah?

Of course, Basra was not Baghdad -

it was in much better shape
than Baghdad was.

CHILDREN CHANT AND CLAP

But the military briefings we had
at the time were worrying

because there was
a clear rise of violence,

even in Basra, let alone in the
rest of the country.

We were trying to get some police
training going,

which would take, sort of,
six months to get

thousands of policemen back on
the streets again,

and you get a sense of a rising
panic on the side of Tony Blair -

we couldn't wait six months
for thousands of police,

we needed them there in six days!

And that made him realise just
the sheer scale of

the task that he'd taken on

and that the Americans were making
a bit of a hash of.

The reconstruction was of a scale
and a level of difficulty

which was simply unprecedented.

It's clear British troops will be
needed in Iraq for the long haul.

Before flying back,
Blair gives them a speech...

This is for me,
I should think, is it?

..at one of Saddam's old palaces.

I know there are a lot
of disagreements in the country

about the wisdom of my decision.

I honestly believe that when people
look back on this conflict,

they will see this as one of
the defining moments of our century

and you did it.

It was your courage and
your professionalism that did it.

And thank you.

YELLING

An insurgency against
the occupation in Iraq

turns into a civil war and lengthy
sectarian conflicts.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
are killed,

and 136 British service personnel.

YELLING AND CHANTING

From the ashes of Al-Qaeda
rose ISIS...

SHOUTING

..and no weapons of mass destruction
were ever found.

A shaky democracy now holds in Iraq,

and Tony Blair has always
publicly denied

that his decision
to invade Iraq was a mistake.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL:
I think he'll go to his grave

genuinely thinking
it was the right thing to do.

Do you?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Yeah. Why the no?

You wouldn't be human
if you didn't think...

Look, it didn't work out as
planned - got to accept that.

TOM: We should be criticised for
the mistakes we did make,

and we did make mistakes.

We didn't know Iraq...

..we didn't understand
the dynamics between

Sunnis and Shias in Iraq,

didn't quite understand the depth

of the dysfunctionality
in the George Bush presidency.

JOHN: It had seriously damaged

the reputation of Britain across
the region.

It was a mistake that we went into
Iraq in the first place.

SHOUTING

He was personally, politically,
mentally,

one of the best-equipped people
we've had as Prime Minister

of the last 70 years,

but his passion and his commitment
to the alliance with the Americans

led him down a road in Iraq where,

basically, he overreached,
we as a country overreached,

and strategically,
it has not been a success.

What advice would you give me as to
what question to ask him on Iraq?

I would focus on telling him
the truth,

because he finds it very hard
to dodge the truth.

And say to him, "Prime Minister,

"I know you think you've done well
on Iraq,

"and you did the right thing,
and you had no choice,

"but the evidence is against you -
do you accept that?"

And he'll say, "No, no, Michael,
the evidence is not so.

"There are all sorts of other
factors that came into play

"which I could not
possibly have known about,

"and actually, on the basis
of the evidence we had,

"I did the right thing." That's the
sort of language he'll use.

You won't get anywhere.

Do you ever feel that, in the end,

Iraq was the biggest mistake
of your career?

Look, most people would say that

Iraq was the biggest mistake
in my career, of course,

and it will always be put,

although history goes on
a long time, right?

And I often say to people, you know,

"If you actually look
at Iraq today...

"..would it be better if Saddam
and his two sons

"had still remained in power?"

People sometimes want to have this
debate with me over and over again

until I finally say,
"No, I tell you what -

"I shouldn't have gone with America,

"I should have taken a different
decision

"and I'm really sorry," right?

I can be sorry about
lots of things in relation to it

but there's no point in carrying on
trying to get me to see...

..you know, a different point of
view from the one I had at the time,

or for me to accept this was
the only thing we did.

Be honest with me,
what would you say are your flaws -

or were your flaws -
as Prime Minister?

You know, I sometimes think that's
for other people to judge, really.

I mean, I...

History will judge you...

..but, sometime
in the deep of night,

you might think about such things.

You might, but on the other hand,
you might decide that

what you think about deep in
the middle of the night

is not what you want to start
declaring on camera...

..which would be very wise
for a politician.

Why not?
You're no longer a politician.

You're always a politician.

If people want the honest truth...

..don't ask a political leader to go

and make a judgment
about themselves,

because you're going to get
a version of it, OK?

I mean, let's just be
honest about it.

Whereas, frankly,
it's going to be a political answer.

I'm being honest, right?

That's what it's going be,
so make your own judgment.

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