Cameron at 10

by Anthony Seldon

  An important message is received at Number 10. Now that the UN Resolution has passed, Obama at last wants to speak to him. He is blunt, telling him that America will help for the first week of action. ‘After that, it’s going to be a British and French operation,’ Obama tells him. Cameron and the team sit down after the call to puzzle out exactly what the president means. ‘What do you think we should now do?’ Cameron asks each in turn. ‘Accept the offer but try and tease more out of him’ is the consensus. They are massively bolstered by having Obama’s support, difficult though it has been to secure. They know that without it, they would be very exposed.

  By 18 March, the Libyan army is at the outskirts of Benghazi. The atmosphere in London and Paris is very tense, the expectation being that Benghazi might fall at any moment. Had Gaddafi pulled his forces back from threatening the city, indeed the UN Resolution might not have passed. On Saturday 19 March, Sarkozy convenes a summit in Paris to affirm the coalition’s commitments in the wake of UNSCR 1973 passing. While Clegg chairs the NSC in Whitehall, Cameron boards a Eurostar train to Paris. Every half an hour, he receives updates from the NSC on latest developments. As the train slows down into Gare du Nord, he gives his authorisation for British military action. Later he describes this as the moment he ‘took the decision to go to war on a mobile phone in France’. On an open line he instructs the NSC: ‘We’ve got to do this.’

  Moments later, they pull into the station, and are whisked through the streets at seventy miles an hour to the Elysée Palace. The PM’s party are pointed to a room, followed shortly after by Hillary Clinton, who has just flown in. Sarkozy is also present, accompanied by a French general who briefs the small group about French attacks that day. ‘What about air defences?’ Cameron asks the French president. Sarkozy hasn’t a clue. He wheels around to his general and asks, ‘What about air defences?’ Satisfied with the general’s response, they go through to lunch where they meet fellow leaders conjoined in military action, including representatives from Arab states. As they begin their meeting that afternoon, French fighter planes are going into action. To Ricketts, it is nothing if not a ‘dramatic meeting’.17 The British ambassador to France, Peter Westmacott, comments how Cameron is happy letting Sarkozy chair the meeting and take the credit for launching the Franco-British operation.18 Some of the leaders are not happy, and murmur that Sarkozy is taking too much of the limelight: they think he is trying to glorify ‘La France’. When they are told about French aircraft going into action in Libya, without their being warned, discontent rises. The participants nevertheless conclude the summit, signing a joint declaration to enforce UNSCR 1973 with all necessary actions, including military force.

  On the train back to London, Cameron is thoughtful. He realises that for his first time as prime minister, he has agreed to a plan of action himself in which people will die. Libya, for better or worse, will be his war. There can be no disguising this. Part of him always felt that Afghanistan belonged to someone else. This war will have his name on it. Once back in Downing Street, he goes quietly to his office and closes the door. He reads his brief for what he will shortly say to the camera. Once he has the text clear in his mind, he walks back down the corridor and out into Downing Street to announce that British planes that evening will be in action with the United States Air Force in the skies above Libya.

  Intense fighting is taking place around Benghazi. On the evening of Saturday 19 March, British war ships and submarines in the Mediterranean launch Tomahawk cruise missiles against air defence system targets, and in the early hours of 20 March, RAF fighter jets strike against Gaddafi’s forces along the coastal highway south of Benghazi. Most of his air defences are knocked out, and Gaddafi’s forces are in retreat.19 On Monday 21 March, Cameron opens the Commons debate on military action in Libya. MPs vote 557 to thirteen in support of military operations, with only one Conservative MP, John Baron, voting against the measure. On 24 March, NATO takes over command of the no-fly zone from the United States. As Obama indicated before the operation began, the US participates for a short while, then steps back. There is a debate over whether Britain and France should jointly lead the operation from headquarters in Northwood, Hertfordshire, instead of using NATO command structures, given the reticence of members such as Germany and Turkey. The White House insists, however, that their ‘air support’ functions (required for target mapping, analysis and refuelling) – set to continue after their military operations have ceased – only be available to the allies through NATO HQ. This helps to pressurise sceptics, above all Germany, to agree to a NATO-led operation. There is still no consensus amongst the allies on whether to target the air campaign against Gaddafi’s ground forces.

  On 26 March, rebel Libyan forces begin a major offensive against the Gaddafi regime, which demands a response from London, Paris and their allies. What now? On Tuesday 29 March, Cameron opens a conference in London attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and leaders across the coalition, to remind them of their core mission, to assess the mission to date, and to begin planning for a post-Gaddafi Libya. Cameron reminds the conference poignantly that many would have died in Benghazi had Gaddafi’s forces been allowed to take the city, before handing the chair to Hague. However, no clear sense of purpose emerges from the conference, particularly over a post-war strategy.20

  Despite the reservations in Whitehall, Cabinet and the military, Cameron has achieved virtual unanimity behind British action. But in the following weeks and months, as progress against Gaddafi becomes bogged down, it all becomes very messy. Ken Clarke breaks cover, to the irritation of Number 10, saying that he was ‘still not totally convinced anyone knows where we are going now’.21 There are several tense moments during meetings of the NSC. ‘There were some very real difficulties that Number 10 didn’t really want to hear,’ recalls one official. With Benghazi now secure, Richards says hostilities should cease, and talks be opened with Gaddafi. Cameron rules out the suggestion. Richards continues to press for a realpolitik approach and is suspicious of the French for being driven by ‘la gloire’, and wants to work with the Libyan tribes who he thinks will be pivotal.22 He complains that he is not being listened to. Number 10 suspect he is talking to the press.

  Cameron’s frustration is rising by the week. With the economy showing no sign of recovery, continuing fallout from the Coulson affair, and no progress in Libya, he comes under mounting pressure. He wants action, and believes the MoD and the Whitehall machine are too sluggish. Without his personal drive, constant probing, and regular chairing of NSC meetings, he thinks there will be no co-ordinated effort from London. Large chunks of each day are spent on the telephone as he tries to fire up partners in the international coalition. Cabinet colleagues start to complain he is too preoccupied on what looks increasingly like a personal obsession.

  The long shadow of Iraq becomes ever darker. Failure to prepare after the original combat operation had been one of the principal failings of the entire unhappy saga. Cameron asks International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell to identify the ‘lessons learnt’ from Iraq. He puts together a team from the MoD, Foreign and Cabinet Offices to work on post-fighting stabilisation.23 And yet, there are frustrations that there is no similar process to the one led by Nigel Sheinwald after the Iraq invasion looking into a post-war solution. ‘The prime minister simply didn’t have faith in the system and bypassed it,’ says one senior figure.

  Ricketts places Whitehall on a war footing, and what Hague dubs the ‘anaconda strategy’, squeezing Gaddafi to the death, is launched. Officials joke that Whitehall is coming to resemble The West Wing, the US television series.24 Libya is the fist big war test for the NSC apparatus, and for Ricketts personally. Cameron comes to admire him for his understanding of NATO, the MoD and the Foreign Office, and for his command of the complex detail. Ricketts is part of the close Number 10 team till his departure in January 2012 to become ambassador in Paris. Now Hugh Powell – son of Thatcher’s foreign policy adviser Charles Powell, and ne
phew of Blair’s right-hand man Jonathan – comes to the fore. One of Ricketts’ two deputies, and a hawk, he has wide-ranging responsibility for gripping Libya. Powell argues that they should be denying oil to forces loyal to Gaddafi, taking out fuel lines, depots and oil facilities, and thus stopping them in their tracks. Cameron agrees. The military reply is that this is a NATO-led campaign, and NATO lawyers argue that these actions are inconsistent with the UNSCR. Cameron is all in favour of cutting loose from NATO and taking action unilaterally, so frustrated is he. Some argue that Powell’s influence at this time ‘positively set back the effort’. French special forces working with Libyan rebels sever the pipeline to the main Libyan refinery at Zawiya,25 and the British broker a secret deal to keep the rebels supplied with oil: without it, Benghazi may well have fallen.

  Blair telephones Number 10 to say he’s been contacted by a key individual close to Gaddafi, and that the Libyan leader wants to cut a deal with the British. Blair is a respected voice in the building and his suggestion is examined seriously. Number 10 decide, though, not to follow it up: they want to avoid doing anything which might be seen to be giving Gaddafi succour. But in parallel, and with Cameron’s knowledge, Powell is secretly exploring backchannel deals to see if Gaddafi can leave Libya with a degree of honour. Nothing comes of this either, nor indeed of Gaddafi’s own proposal that he should become a ‘monarch figure without real power’.

  The capture of Misrata by the rebels on 15 May, after a long battle, brings temporary relief, but stalemate soon returns. Summer arrives, and there is still no resolution. Gaddafi is very much alive, and rebel forces are failing to make headway against the Libyan forces. Cameron maintains relentless pressure on Whitehall to produce imaginative solutions: sanctions are one possibility, as are finding fresh ways of helping the rebel forces to become more effective. Some feel the opportunity for an international presence on the ground working with the militias while a political settlement is pushed through has long since passed. And in any case, the idea was never seriously advocated. ‘There was no security presence on the ground. That was a huge failure. That was a failing of the system. No one was thinking that through clearly,’ says one who was part of the discussions. Richards’ complaints do not let up: he feels Cameron and the NSC are interfering with the military operation and being involved even down to the most tactical level. ‘We had really frequent meetings where the prime minister felt that the system wasn’t really committed, or trying its hardest to make this work,’ recalls one official. ‘He wanted to keep checking up on all the details.’ The army chiefs say that if there’s still stalemate after six months, which means by August, Britain’s capacity to continue operations will be exhausted. Number 10 feels the military are reserving their position, gearing themselves up to say ‘we told you so’.

  Cameron’s frustration results in occasional outbursts. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he explodes, when Dominic Grieve counters his suggestion to airlift 200 million Libyan banknotes printed in Britain from a Kent airfield to the rebels. ‘Why cannot I just order they are going to go, and I’ll provide a waiver and indemnity on the legalities?’ Grieve points out that the UN freeze covers all Libyan assets, including money that could be used to help the rebels.26

  There is little sign of a breakthrough in June, despite the rebels concentrating their fire on the West around Tripoli. These are some dark days in Number 10. Gove acts as principal cheerleader in Cabinet, buoying up any ministers who are beginning to have doubts. Cameron is aware that they are making it up as they are going along – one senior aide describes policy as ‘a halfway house between Bosnia, where we did nothing, and Iraq, where we sent troops in on the ground. At no point did we ever consider that. We were always clear it was up to the Libyans to sort it out.’

  July is yet another worrying month in Number 10. Qatari weapons and trainers appear to be making some impact, the fruit of Cameron’s productive relationship with HBJ. But everyone in Number 10 is planning to leave for holidays at the end of July with no obvious conclusion in sight. One option being mooted is to host a big international conference in the style of the US Dayton Accords over Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995. Another is for Number 10 to accept that it may have to talk to Gaddafi, for all Cameron’s revulsion at the very prospect.

  Sarkozy has become equally frustrated, though has a more amenable military chief than Richards, and is able thus to drive forward harder. The president sets up a secret operational headquarters outside Paris, separate to NATO, to inject energy into the campaign. This is referred to for security reasons by the nickname ‘the four amigos’ (beside France are Britain, Qatar and the UAE). ‘David, we are not schoolboys in short trousers. We are men,’ Sarkozy utters to Cameron to contrast their resolve with that of the fickle Americans. He is constantly egging Cameron on to take bolder positions – on this occasion it is his desire to outflank the Obama administration on the entire Middle East Peace Process. The four powers agree on a new strategy to help tip the balance against Gaddafi’s forces. It includes switching support away from the formal opposition, which is bogged down in the east of the country, to new rebel groups in the west. Military assistance will be provided, and this new strategy will take place outside the straightjacket of NATO.

  On 20 July, members of the rebels’ forces based in Misrata in the west of Libya fly on a secret mission to see Sarkozy in Paris. They are planning a bold attack on Tripoli. The following weeks see French, British and Qatari assistance in Libya providing the rebels with weapons, fuel and food, as well as giving them access to satellite imagery of enemy positions. Fighter planes step up their aerial bombing campaign to facilitate the rebels’ advance towards Tripoli.27 On 20 August, the rebels enter Tripoli, reaching Green Square in the centre of the city. On 23 August, they capture Gaddafi’s compound, and three days later, the final areas of the city collapse. Fighting continues for several more weeks, as Gaddafi’s strongholds elsewhere in the country continue to hold out. On 20 October, a NATO air strike outside of Sirte halts a military convoy. Rebel forces engage the vehicles, one of which contains Gaddafi, who then hides in a drainage pipe. He is taken prisoner, wounded but alive. By the time he reaches Misrata he is dead. On 21 October, NATO announces that operations in Libya will cease ten days later.28

  Sarkozy and Cameron have a private understanding that neither will visit Libya without the other. Even though the fighting is not yet over, a date for their joint expedition is fixed for 15 September. In Number 10, the visit is a closely guarded secret. The evening before, Cameron is driven from his constituency to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. After dinner and a short sleep in military accommodation, the two leaders fly in the early hours in an RAF C-17 Globemaster aircraft. Gabby Bertin carries a Union Jack in her handbag, given to her the day before by the Foreign Office to fly at the British Embassy in Tripoli, which had been looted and burnt earlier in the year.29 The military are worried about ground-to-air missiles, with a secure military presence on the ground yet to be established. The French military protection ring around them is exceptionally heavy.

  After months of strain, Cameron is boyishly excited: ‘He really, really, really thinks he has done the right thing,’ says an aide on the flight. He and Sarkozy are all but mobbed by the hysterical crowds. They all want to see and touch them. In Benghazi, they speak to a crowd of several thousands. Cameron is alert to the dangers of hubris: he is anxious to avoid Bush’s mistake when he announced in May 2003, aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an end of major combat operations in Iraq (the infamous ‘Mission accomplished’ speech). It is nevertheless Cameron’s most exciting day so far as prime minister. That evening, back in London, he speaks at a political dinner at the Carlton Club. His message is that the Conservative Party must be unambiguously on the side of the most vulnerable.30 There is to be no Thatcherite triumphalism, as when she told the press outside Downing Street on 25 April 1982 to ‘Rejoice!’ after British troops landed on South Georgia at the outset of the Falklands War.

  Libya i
s the formative experience for Cameron in his premiership to date. He feels vindicated, and his self-confidence is initially boosted. Rose-tinted spectacles have been removed from his eyes about fellow world leaders. He cannot rely fully on Obama, nor Merkel, and Sarkozy’s ego knows no bounds. But equally, he learns how to build a coalition of foreign leaders, and sustain it, even in adverse circumstances. The future of the Libya story will, he recognises, be down to the Libyans themselves, and to their ability to form a stable government. He is cautiously optimistic – too optimistic, it turns out. Libya is not to be the success that the Falklands War was for Thatcher. He invested much personal capital in Libya. But from 2013 the situation in the country deteriorates gradually before ‘falling apart’ from the autumn of 2014. Cameron has learnt how difficult it is to unseat even the most capricious overseas leaders, and how hard it is to change the status quo: to do so requires him to drive the change himself, because the military and diplomatic establishment is inherently conservative; he is more sceptical of the MoD and the service chiefs than he was before the Libya episode. At the conclusion of hostilities, in an attempt to show that there are no hard feelings, he presents Richards with a signed photograph, and a first edition of T. E. Lawrence’s book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It is not the last of their battles. Syria is to come.