NINE
February–September 2011
Monday 21 February 2011. Cameron goes for a walk through the highly charged streets of Cairo. North Africa is in turmoil. Five weeks before, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia had resigned after violent protests. Events there sparked a wave of unrest across the Arab world. On 25 January, thousands of protestors gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square demanding the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, autocrat leader of Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. On 11 February, the protestors in Egypt achieved their goal: Mubarak was gone. As Cameron walks the streets and inhales the febrile air, he feels vindicated in his first decision taken in the ‘Arab Spring’ – not to come out in support of the existing regimes and urge them to take back control of their countries.
Back at home, however, his Cabinet is divided on the subject. Defence Secretary Liam Fox urges caution, arguing ‘it is unclear what our long-term strategy is’.1 So too does MI6 head John Sawers, who warns of the danger of mistaking the middle classes protesting as demonstrative of a genuine revolution in the country more generally. At the other pole stands Michael Gove, ranging far from his education brief, who argues that failure to support the protestors could alienate Britain from the Egyptian population. Cameron wants to be the first world leader to go out to see the Arab Spring for himself. On the flight on the way out, he tells his team, ‘This is a great opportunity to talk to those running Egypt to help ensure this really is a genuine transition from military to civilian rule.’2 At the time, it is felt that it would be possible to deal with the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) who had been formed after the toppling of President Mubarak, despite their links to the Muslim Brotherhood. ‘They really didn’t understand properly what they were up against,’ says one senior figure in the intelligence community. As Cameron talks to passers-by in Cairo, his strong instinct is to support these ‘brave people’ with their aspirations to replace corrupt and authoritarian regimes. On the streets, he is relaxed, though his security detail are far from happy. Later he meets interim Egyptian prime minister, Ahmed Shafik. Many in Britain at the time share Cameron’s optimism that the fall of Mubarak might open the door for civil society to reaffirm itself, and for Egypt to have a modern constitution and democracy. He reckons that if the protests fail to produce a stable alternative government, the Egyptian army would always step in again, and little would have been lost.
The following day, 22 February, Cameron is in his hotel room in Doha, Qatar, watching the television screen. He is captivated and excited by the images of the protestors in Libya, who had taken to the streets of Benghazi within days of the fall of Mubarak. Gaddafi has ordered the Libyan army to crack down hard, and already a hundred protestors have been killed.3 Cameron feels a deep sense of Schadenfreude at the plight of Gaddafi. By his side stands John Casson, Tom Fletcher’s successor. Cameron is fortunate in his foreign affairs private secretaries. Fletcher had given him insight into the issues and personalities gleaned from two years serving Brown. As focus switches to the Arab world, enter Casson, an Arabist who has recently been overseeing North Africa and the Middle East in the Foreign Office. Since taking over in November 2010, he has been coaxing Cameron towards a vision for the whole African continent, and for reform and democratisation in the Arab world.
That evening, Cameron has a long dinner with Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, prime minister of Qatar. For the next two years, ‘HBJ’, as he is known, will be the foreign leader Cameron speaks to most in the region. They sit down at a small round table, an army of attendants anxiously watching on. He launches into a tirade, telling Cameron that Gaddafi is mad and finished and that other Arab leaders needed to say so. What’s more, the Russians have to realise this fact, he tells the PM. The Qatari prime minister touches a raw nerve in Cameron, who has a visceral dislike of the Libyan leader. The murder of the young policewoman Yvonne Fletcher by a Libyan outside their embassy in St James’s Square, London, in April 1984 happened when he was still at Eton – a formative time for him. Four years later came the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 270 people, mostly British and American citizens. When the bomb was proven to have been planted by a Libyan, Cameron became still more angry. He was repulsed by Tony Blair’s decision in his final term to rehabilitate Gaddafi, which is why he argued strongly in 2009 against the Scottish government’s return of the bomber al-Megrahi on grounds of illness to Libya. Gordon Brown claimed that it was the Scottish government who had taken the decision. Cameron did not believe him, and once inside Number 10, asked Gus O’Donnell to conduct a review into the episode. It concluded that the previous government ‘did all it could to facilitate’ the release of al-Megrahi, and that lobbying by BP over its commercial interests in Libya ‘played a part’ in its decision to release Libyan prisoners.4 In the autumn of 2010, Cameron came under diplomatic pressure to attend a summit that Gaddafi was hosting. He declined forthrightly. Gaddafi felt slighted. Cameron said he would go nowhere near him. It is a very personal animosity. A timely release of the report into the al-Megrahi affair took place in early February 2011.5 ‘Let’s make a joint public statement saying that war crimes have been committed,’ Cameron now says to HBJ over the table. The Qatari prime minister agrees, expressing his exasperation at Gaddafi’s corrupt behaviour and betrayal. ‘Well, I have no love for Gaddafi!’ Cameron replies. He tells HBJ about his revulsion over Yvonne Fletcher and Lockerbie.
The next day, 23 February, Cameron and his party fly on to see the sultan of Oman. The day before, Gaddafi makes a televised speech vowing to catch the demonstrators like ‘rats’. If the protestors do not surrender, he will ‘slaughter’ them.6 He will never give up power, he says, and would rather die a martyr. Cameron is tired. It is half-term week, and the trip has been emotionally and physically exhausting. He would like to be back home relaxing with his children. But the sultan has been anticipating his visit eagerly and has laid on a very long and very splendid meal. A note is brought in which is intercepted by Casson: ‘Call London’, it says. Casson asks the sultan’s permission to leave the table and goes outside. ‘British expats are in danger in Libya,’ he is told down the line. The day before, Cameron had spoken out strongly in support of the protestors in Libya. As war breaks out, British civilians are in imminent danger. The Foreign Office is not having its most glorious hour. It has chartered a plane to evacuate some of the 500 British citizens estimated still to be in Libya, but it has broken down at Gatwick and ten hours are lost while it is repaired. The media goes to town on the government’s prevarication, contrasting it to the French, German and Brazilian governments who have chartered planes and ships immediately to bring out their own nationals. Cameron rarely loses his temper, but he does so now. He is furious that the wheels of government have ground to a halt.
The Coulson and phone-hacking sagas have changed the entire mood music in the UK. Cameron is under fire from the press for being on a trip when he should be dealing with the crisis at home. Hypocrisy is another charge: why is he accepting hospitality from undemocratic sheikhs when he is encouraging democracy elsewhere in the Arab world? As soon as he can politely extract himself from the sultan’s sumptuous table, he makes a conference call to William Hague and Liam Fox. They debate the pros and cons of sending in military aircraft to Libya. Cameron hears too much equivocation. ‘Just send the RAF in and do it now,’ he instructs them. A C130 transport plane is promptly dispatched from the south of England to collect the oil workers from the desert. It comes under small-arms fire from a Gaddafi loyalist on the ground. Had the plane come down, it would have been one of the biggest crises of the premiership. The incident is hushed up, but the Foreign Office blames Number 10 for briefing against it over the handling of the evacuation. An ugly moment is exacerbated a week later on 4 March when six SAS soldiers dropped into Libya are arrested and sent home.7 Cameron has already apologised for the bungle over the evacuation, and on 7 March, Hague takes responsibility for the failed military operation. Not a good start.
The SAS adventure is a harbinger of a new and far more serious turn of events in Libya. So far, Cameron has not crossed the Rubicon. Anti-Gaddafi rebels in Libya come under intense pressure over the next few days and on 26 February, a UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) freezes Gaddafi’s assets and imposes an arms embargo on the country. Two days later, Cameron proposes to fellow leaders a ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya to deter Gaddafi’s use of jet fighters against the rebels. ‘Go now,’ Cameron urges Gaddafi. On 2 March, he tells the House of Commons that the international community are considering his suggestion of a no-fly zone. He is becoming increasingly convinced that a military response may be needed, and instructs the MoD to draw up plans. Gaddafi’s reply is to intensify his assault against rebels in Misrata to the east of Tripoli. Cameron is speaking regularly to Nicolas Sarkozy in France: they want to act militarily, but do not want to do so without US support. Obama is sitting on the fence and does not want to play ball.8 Cameron’s support for a no-fly zone is melting away.
Cameron is working particularly closely with Llewellyn, who draws on his experience as an adviser to Paddy Ashdown, when he was high representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 2000s. David Richards, newly promoted to chief of the defence staff, believes that Llewellyn is egging on Cameron. They have a model of the Balkans in their heads, Richards surmises, notably the massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995.9 By acting now, they think they can prevent another Srebrenica unfolding in Benghazi. Cameron knows of Richards’ scepticism, and he discusses the difference between them with his team. He’s all too aware of the long shadow cast by Iraq, which suggests that military intervention by the West in a Muslim country is well nigh impossible to countenance. But he is determined not to abandon those fighting Gaddafi. He has been much influenced by a book, Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance by David Gardner of the Financial Times. ‘Unless the Arab countries can find a way out of this pit of autocracy, their people will be condemned to bleak lives of despair’, Gardner writes.10 Cameron is full of zeal: his instincts are with the people on the streets. Weighing heavily in his mind is the human cost of inaction. His moral purpose is fully shared by Llewellyn.
A divide is opening up on the NSC with Richards, and less strongly John Sawers, warning about the risks of a ‘half-baked’ military intervention. They believe that the ‘idea of a simple no-fly zone’ will make no difference to the situation on the ground. Hague is in favour, cautiously, of military intervention. In Cabinet, George Osborne and Michael Gove are most supportive of action, as is – to Number 10’s surprise – Ken Clarke, who nine years before defied the Tory whip and voted against the Iraq War. Fox argues that Britain cannot possibly engage in an open-ended commitment at the very time, following the SDSR review, when it is regrouping its defence forces. The deteriorating position in Yemen and Bahrain concerns him, and he thinks it will be a mistake to put all the British military assets into Libya.11 A generational split is opening up in the daily meetings of the NSC. Younger members, dubbed the ‘forty-something generation’ – including Cameron, Clegg, Llewellyn and others – for whom Bosnia was a formative experience, are in favour of action; older voices, and almost all officials, are advising, ‘We will have to strike a deal with Gaddafi.’ Some military and intelligence officials believe Cameron’s team are ‘twenty years out of date when it comes to dealing with conflict’, having not been immersed in the Iraq and Afghan campaigns.
On 6 March, Gaddafi’s army launches a tank and artillery counter-offensive against the rebels, smashing their disorganised forces, and advances swiftly along the Libyan coast towards Benghazi where he plans to put down the uprising. On Monday 7 March, the differences between Cabinet members come out into the open at a special Cabinet meeting held in Derby. Cameron startles ministers by saying he does not regard UN support as a prerequisite for military intervention in Libya, desirable though it may be. He is becoming steelier by the day. He convenes a private meeting in Downing Street for Libyan exiles and specialists: their overwhelming message is that the uprising is genuinely nationalist and democratic, and Libya will not descend into a tribal war if the West intervenes.12
The NSC start meeting at least once a day: there are sixty-nine meetings of the full NSC or its Libya subcommittee over the entire episode. Cameron is becoming increasingly impatient with the Whitehall machine. He forces the pace and demands papers from the NSC secretariat. It produces a menu of options including air strikes and mentoring teams to guide the rebel forces. One option alone is off the table, ‘boots on the ground’, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one is advocating this. Cameron understands the risks of doing so. Rather he wants to strengthen the opposition to Gaddafi and he believes that support from the international community is necessary if they are to achieve that. Cameron says that he’s willing to risk failure; officials, however, are reluctant to consider failure as an option. An NSC meeting later in that month tellingly reveals the widening split between Cameron and his officials over Libya as well as illustrating the PM’s own motivations on the matter. Upon declaring to those assembled that ‘intervention in Libya is in the British national interest, speak now or hold your peace’, the prime minister is confronted by John Sawers, who disputes this is a matter of national interest. He wants to do it for humanitarian reasons, Sawers tells him. Cameron is surprised by the challenge, but quickly answers somewhat unsatisfactorily, ‘Yes, yes, but it is important that we do these things.’ It is answers like this that lead many in the intelligence and defence community to worry that the whole situation is ‘not clearly thought through’.
On 11 March, EU leaders meet at an emergency summit in Brussels to discuss the deteriorating situation. Cameron arrives wanting a very tough communiqué in support of decisive action. He has been talking daily to an increasingly emotional Sarkozy, who is saying that Libya is the great humanitarian issue of the day. On the other hand, some argue he has not been talking or working closely enough with Obama. At dinner with fellow leaders, Sarkozy becomes so angry with the failure of other leaders to support the emerging Anglo-French initiative that he storms out dramatically. Cameron follows him out of the room to placate him. ‘Forget it,’ the French president snaps at him, ‘I’ve had enough of these people.’ ‘Well Nicolas,’ Cameron replies, ‘I still think we should have a go and get some language that could be useful for us.’ ‘I disagree. It’s better to tell the media they are complete weaklings who are happy to see Gaddafi massacre innocent people.’ ‘No, no,’ replies Cameron, ‘it’s important to try and get at least some support as long as we have a chance.’ He soothes Sarkozy enough to bring him back to the table, but their fellow EU leaders are still far from convinced of the need for a strong EU response. Conspicuous in its opposition is Germany. Angela Merkel feels let down and out of the loop. Obama has had an eleventh-hour change of heart, and is now in favour of supporting a no-fly zone, although it is still unclear whether the US would take part. But his switch wasn’t communicated to Merkel earlier. The Americans feel that they are being bounced into action, due to a lack of communication, and this explains their later desire to ‘supersede what the Europeans had been doing’. Ever since 1945, a core tenet of German foreign policy has been to support the US and French line. Where they diverge, as over Iraq in 2003, the decision is always to go with one or the other. On Libya, Germany finds herself at odds with both of her traditional allies.13 Merkel later tells Cameron that one of her biggest regrets of her time as chancellor was for Germany to end up outside the coalition over Libya. But within her own closed circle, she is unapologetic about Libya, and feels vindicated by the subsequent course of events.
Cameron and Sarkozy have more success with the Arab League, who they have been intensively lobbying. Hague’s lobbying of the Egyptian Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, is crucial. On 12 March, the Arab League calls for the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, saying that the Gaddafi government has ‘lost its sovereignty’. On 14 March, however, embarrassment is caused in London and Paris when Saudi and Emirati troops help crush protests in Bahrain, shattering any illusion that the Gulf States are being supportive in Libya because of a newfound affection for democracy and human rights. Their concerns remain stability, not democracy.
Arab support, regardless of the niceties, is crucial in gaining UN Security Council support for Resolution 1973, advocating ‘all necessary measures’ to be taken to protect Libyan civilians. Cameron and Sarkozy concentrate their lobbying on the White House. Peter Ricketts’ contacts in the Obama administration help, as does lobbying by long-serving British ambassador, Nigel Sheinwald. Their task is not helped by the administration being split down the middle, which explains Obama’s wobbling. In favour of UNSCR 1973 are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and UN ambassador Susan Rice. In opposition are most of the State Department, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon. The Pentagon and State Department talk to their opposite numbers in London, smelling their scepticism, which does nothing to increase their own enthusiasm for action.
It is St Patrick’s Day weekend, the big annual Irish celebration in the US calendar. Sheinwald talks to Obama in the margins of the celebrations. It’s clear there will be military action from the British and French, he says, with or without the Americans. Obama’s unclear position has been causing concern and anxiety in Downing Street. ‘He won’t take our calls because he doesn’t know where he stands. It’s not very impressive,’ spits out one aide.
On 12 March, with the UN Security Council debate imminent, Cameron phones Merkel. ‘I know you are very sceptical on this, but can you at least abstain? It will be a very close vote,’ he pleads. ‘I don’t want to vote against my comrades. I think I will abstain. But I will not participate militarily,’ she says. As an aside, she says to Cameron, to whom she’s becoming increasingly close: ‘One day, I really want you to tell me what it is with Libya: why are you so obsessed with it?’ She speaks in English. Cameron likes her directness. ‘He’s killing large numbers of people. It’s not like Darfur or Cote d’Ivoire,’ two places where recent massacres had occurred, he responds. She pauses. ‘I think I see why you see it differently.’ She likes Cameron and seeks to understand why they are at loggerheads.
On 17 March, to the surprise of many who thought that the Russians would block it, UNSCR 1973 is passed by ten votes to zero, with five abstentions (Russia, Germany, Brazil, China and India). Cameron now has legal cover from the UN. In his mind and that of his aides, he must avoid anything akin to the anarchic decision-making process of Blair in the run-up to the Iraq War. He knows that the first fresh British military intervention since Iraq will be much the stronger for explicit UN authorisation. All involved weigh the possibility that they will face the prospect of Iraq-style inquiries hanging over them in the future. No one wants to be involved in any decision which is not completely defensible, not least with the Chilcot Inquiry, the last of several into the Iraq War, still in full swing. Support of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) and Arab League has fortified the cause immeasurably: there is genuine regional support from other Arab and Muslim states. This is to be no Holy War against Islam.
On Friday 18 March, Cameron holds an emergency Cabinet meeting. It is briefed out to the media that no ministers are considering resigning in disagreement, as Robin Cook and Clare Short did from Blair’s Cabinet over Iraq in 2003.14 Fox, despite earlier qualms, is now totally behind the action proposed. As ministers arrive at the meeting, the written legal advice from the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, giving his opinion on the legitimacy of any actions is placed in front of each seat around the Cabinet table.15 Later that day, Cameron makes a statement in the House of Commons, flanked by the Attorney General, emphasising again that there are no difficulties on the legality of any action that might take place. The PM commits British forces to enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya. As Matthew d’Ancona, the journalist closest to the Cameron team, writes in his column for the Sunday Telegraph two days later, ‘whatever now happens in the skies of Benghazi and the streets of Tripoli, there will be no allegations in the months and years to come that the PM misled the Commons, or that the conflict was conducted by a “sofa government”’.16 Cameron’s team remain acutely aware of the lessons of the build-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. They knew they could not proceed without full legal cover and proper consultation of the Cabinet.
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 nephew 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 is 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.