Speaking for Myself (39 page)

At the beginning of the new year, Tony and I set off on an official trip to Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. By now the Foreign Office had acknowledged my usefulness, and while Tony talked with various officials, I visited a number of projects related to women.

Because of the color and vibrancy of the subcontinent, the poverty there always comes as a shock. Yet huge efforts were being made to harness the entrepreneurial skills of women. Near Dhaka I visited a microcredit program run by a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called BRAC, which had not only set up the cooperative where women learned to manage the microfinance loans they received but also delivered elementary health care and education to women. Some women would be trained in basic health-care principles and techniques and have access to things such as malaria tablets and contraception. Other women would be trained in women’s basic human rights under Islamic law, learning, for example, that husbands don’t own all their wives’ property and that a husband’s family can’t take away the wife’s property.

The British High Commission continues to be very involved in dealing with forced marriages and related issues, and I was taken to a refuge for women whose husbands’ families had been in some way dissatisfied with them — perhaps because of their physical appearance or their dowries. To substantiate their claims that these women were substandard, the husbands’ families poured acid from car batteries over the women’s heads. According to Human Rights Watch, in Pakistan such attacks killed 280 women and injured 750 in 2002 alone. In Bangladesh there were 485 acid attacks that year. With the increasing availability of car batteries, these horrific incidents multiplied. The women’s injuries defied description. They had no faces left, or at least no distinguishing features. It was as if their flesh had melted. Hugging these women was, for me, a way of defying their aggressors. I know how much it means to have human contact, and luckily I have never felt any physical repugnance toward any human being, though I believe that is the purpose of these cruel and cowardly attacks.

At that time in Bangladesh, both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were women (though they hated each other with a passion). It seems extraordinary to me that in a country where being a woman is apparently no barrier to high office, individual women are treated as being of less value than animals.

Wanting both to be comfortable and to show respect, I asked Babs Mahil to make my clothes for this trip. She also wanted to make something for Tony — a Nehru-style suit that he wore to the state banquet in India. I thought he looked very handsome, but the British press, true to form, had a real go at him. Sadly, he never wore the suit again. Although Alastair had claimed to approve, he was in fact generally of the opinion that Tony could wear anything as long as it was an ordinary suit, and he was to be the final arbiter of Tony’s attire.

Thus, when we arrived in Bangladesh, Tony wasn’t even wearing his own suit. Alastair had deemed it too crumpled, and so Magi Cleaver had been dispatched to the terminal to find another one. Some bemused young man, who turned out to be from our Department of International Development, was persuaded to give up his suit for an hour so that the British Prime Minister would look sufficiently smart. For the rest of the trip, André was in charge, and it just went to show once again that when André wasn’t there, things fell apart.

Our next destination, Kabul, was not on the official itinerary. Indeed, we were under a complete press embargo. “You don’t have to go,” Foreign Office officials had told me, but I was determined: “I’m going with Tony.” It had been nearly two months since Kabul had been taken, but it was still far from safe, which was why we flew in the middle of the night and would go no further than Bagram air base.

Unsurprisingly, this was the first time I had traveled in an army plane. It was designed for carrying troops, and I’d been warned that it was lacking in even the most basic creature comforts. There were no regular seats, and the toilet was a bucket. Not that I saw it: I decided I would rather die than climb over the press — sworn to silence in exchange for being allowed in on the secret — to go to the bucket in the back.

In fact, there weren’t that many of us, but Tony and I were lucky enough to be taken into the cockpit, and we were there from takeoff to landing. The crew members were special services people (elite SAS commandos) who had been flying in and out of Afghanistan on various missions since the war began, and they made it seem as easy as a school bus route. These were the kind of daredevil pilots beloved by writers, not faint of heart in any way.

Tony and I sat in the back of the cockpit where the engineer would normally sit, and above us was a sort of see-through dome where the gunner would stand and direct the fire. As we took off, Tony asked if he could stand up and watch. So there he was, peering out into the night and asking them about this and that. One of the pilots took on the mantle of tour guide, pointing out different peaks and telling us when we were crossing the Khyber Pass — an area that is lawless to this day. As we flew into Afghan airspace over the mountains of northern Pakistan, all the lights went off. Even though we might not be seen, the pilot helpfully explained, we could still be hit by a heat-seeking missile. An indication on the radar that we might have been spotted resulted in immediate avoidance tactics, and the plane began to swerve and sway, the idea being that any missile already deployed would be misled, aiming for where we had been rather than where we were now.

So Tony was standing up there, watching all of this, while I was strapped in, thinking,
Why did I come? I’ve got four children at home, one of whom is less than two years old. It was nutty of me to think this was a good idea.
Believe it or not, as I was sitting there, my entire life really did flash before my eyes. All I could think about was that if I hadn’t come along, at least one of us would have been alive for the kids. Finally, at 1:30 a.m., we arrived at Bagram air base.

It’s only when you land in a military plane that you realize that a commercial landing is basically done for the benefit of the passengers. There was no question that we had touched down — indeed, “touched” is much too mild a word for it.

Make no mistake, Afghanistan in January is cold. I had my big heavy coat on, but it wasn’t enough.

The red carpet was out; I hadn’t expected this kind of welcome. But I was soon disabused of its purpose. “Whatever you do,” the copilot said as we walked down the steps, “stay on the carpet.” Bagram had been mined by Taliban forces, and although some of the mines had been cleared, there was still a way to go. “We can guarantee that as long as you stay on the red carpet, you’ll be okay.” (Whenever I find myself walking on a red carpet, I remember that arrival at Bagram.)

Even though it was the middle of the night, we were greeted with due ceremony by President Karzai and his Cabinet. I was so grateful to have landed safely I could have kissed them all.

The SAS had played a very important part in the invasion, and I was totally enthralled by the stories of how they’d stormed Taliban hideouts, real tales of derring-do. It was impossible to imagine how close they’d been to death and how, against all odds, they’d managed to pull it off. Staff from our Department of International Development gave an impressive presentation on what we were going to do to help Afghanistan build itself up again. The Afghans said over and over how grateful they were and how fantastic our people were doing. If you want someone to help rebuild your country, they said, the British have the right stuff.

While Tony had a meeting with Karzai, I was introduced to the Minister for Women, Sima Samar, and together we spoke to a group of women soldiers who were helping with the peacekeeping. When we asked them what their impressions were, they told us that each day more and more women were visible on the streets, although few were uncovering their faces. The minister told them that for the people of Kabul, the very presence of these young women soldiers doing responsible peacekeeping work was an important step toward the recognition of women’s right to see and be seen. When I asked her what I could do to help, what the women of Afghanistan wanted, her message was simple: Please make sure you keep the pressure on the men. Please don’t forget the women of Afghanistan.

While we were talking with troops based at the airport, Tony took a call from Gordon Brown’s office. I knew from his face what had happened. Gordon and Sarah’s newborn baby, Jennifer, had died. We had been on our way to Hyderabad when the news had come through that she was dangerously ill. She had been born prematurely, and although she was a fighter, things were not looking good. Throughout the trip I had found it very hard to smile for the cameras knowing what they were facing back home. As a comparatively new father himself, Tony also was all too aware of the emotional strain they were under.

We arrived back in England on Tuesday and were in Scotland on Friday. We went first to their house. Sarah was so calm, and it was very brave of her to let us come. Whereas in the old days Gordon’s flat had always been a bit of a mess, Sarah had made their house into a welcoming home. Losing a baby under any circumstances is terrible, and losing your first baby is utterly devastating. My heart went out to both of them.

From our visits to Washington, we had got to know Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for President in 2000, and his wife, Tipper, reasonably well. So I think it’s fair to say that our hearts sank when the results of the 2000 election were finally in. In fact, Tony had felt very strongly that Gore had played it wrong during the campaign and that he should have used Bill Clinton more rather than distancing himself from the President. He seemed not to realize how much goodwill Bill still commanded and what a great communicator he was. Like the rest of the world, we followed the drama of the election, and for me, as a lawyer, it was fascinating to see the U.S. Supreme Court splitting along political lines. It would never have happened like that in the UK, because the appointment of our judges is not so politicized.

We had watched George W. Bush on television and felt that he didn’t seem comfortable with foreign affairs, yet Tony was determined that they should have a good relationship. Others of our party, notably Alastair and Sally Morgan, had a more mixed view.

As we prepared for our first meeting with the Bushes at Camp David at the end of February 2001, I said to Tony, “Let’s face it, he’s probably not looking forward to it much either. He knows we’re friends of the Clintons, and he also knows you’re a Labour Prime Minister and all the rest of it, so everybody’s going to be a bit nervous, everybody’s going to want to try and get along.”

The fact that the encounter was in the semirustic setting of Camp David was indicative, in a way, of the difference between the two presidents. The Clintons had entertained us lavishly with a formal banquet at the White House. And whereas they never really got going till late, the Bushes were tucked up in bed by ten. We had come from Ottawa, where I had been half-frozen, having no idea of how heart-stoppingly cold it would be. From Washington we were flown out to Camp David in the presidential helicopter
Marine One,
which is less like a helicopter and more like a small plane.

We had been to Camp David once before with the Clintons, and it had not been what I’d expected. Because it was the presidential equivalent of Chequers, I thought it would be a country home. But Camp David is a U.S. Marine base. Everyone stays in wooden “cabins” named after trees. Each cabin has a lounge, a bathroom, and two bedrooms, all decorated to a luxurious standard. (When the Clintons were there, the hand lotion and soap came from a supplier in Arkansas.) The cabins are all spread out, and whenever you venture outside, you’re followed by military personnel.

That first night with the Bushes, we had an early dinner. The meal over, the President said, “Why don’t we all watch a movie?” So we did. He got all the new releases on DVD, he explained, and that night we watched
Meet the Parents
with Robert De Niro. There were armchairs ranged around, and I sat next to George, who was soon laughing away. It was a perfectly friendly evening, very low-key. We were joined by our ambassador, Christopher Meyer, and his wife, Catherine, and of course by Jonathan Powell, Alastair, and the others.

In fact, the Prime Minister and the President got on remarkably well. George is actually a very funny, charming man with a quirky sense of humor. The reason he gets bad press, he says, is “because I talk Texan.” Bush thinks Texan, too. Bill Clinton is also from the South, but while Clinton may talk southern, he doesn’t think southern.

There had certainly been a slight sense of anxiety before the meeting, but by the time we left, the general consensus was that “he’s a guy we can easily get on with.” We may not have agreed in terms of domestic politics, but that is largely irrelevant in terms of international diplomacy. And the special relationship between the UK and the United States is precisely why, when Bush and the Republicans took over, there was never any question that we would do everything we could to get on well with them.

As we were escorted to
Marine One
after breakfast, I realized that we hadn’t been back to our cabin to get André or our luggage.

“Don’t worry,” I was told. “He’ll be on the helicopter.” He wasn’t, but by the time I found out, it was too late. André wasn’t the only one who’d been left behind. There was a garden girl as well, not to mention our bags. Apparently they had both been waiting patiently for us to get back from breakfast. Somebody had to arrange for another helicopter to bring them back to Washington, and Christopher Meyer was not amused, claiming that it was somehow my fault.

The next time we saw the Bushes was at Chequers a month or so later. By then we knew that George didn’t really like formal entertaining, and if they’d come to Number 10, we’d have to have had some kind of formal dinner. They were much happier in an informal setting, and we were very clear that we wanted it to be just
en famille
. When we were told that Condoleezza Rice wanted to stay the night, we said no. Everyone could come for the meetings, but there were to be no sleepovers apart from the family. The day they were arriving, Linda, who was then running Chequers, came to see me.