In an op-ed piece for the Guardian, Alastair Campbell, former “Director of Communications and Strategy” for Tony Blair, complains about the “rise in cynicism” about politics among young people. One way of combating it, he argues, might be the internet, which he has belatedly discovered. Only a few years ago, he says, he couldn’t even write an email:

I thought that my computer illiteracy might become more of an issue at the time of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of government scientist David Kelly. Lord Hutton, the judge in charge of the inquiry, called for all papers and emails relevant to the events under his wide-ranging investigation, and these were published almost immediately they became evidence. This was seen by many as a groundbreaking use of the internet during such an inquiry. There were emails galore to be published, but none from me, just a few sent on my behalf by my long-suffering PA or one of her team. At one point during my appearance to give evidence, I had to explain who all these people were who sent emails “on behalf of Alastair Campbell”.

If this looks like a further attempt at self-exoneration (”Look, I didn’t even write those emails!”), it might be illuminating to recall that the documents collected by Hutton included not only emails but also typewritten memoranda explicitly headed “From: Alastair Campbell”. You never know, but close scrutiny of these memoranda might go some way to explaining the “cynicism” of the British public.

For example, in a memo to Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett, dated 17 September 2002, Campbell requested changes to the draft dossier on “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. Campbell wrote:

3. Can we say he has secured uranium from Africa. [CAB/11/0067]

Scarlett responded the following day to say:

3. on the uranium from Africa, the agreed interpretation of the intelligence, brokered with some difficulty with the originators and owners of the reporting) allows us only to say that he has ’sought’ uranium from Africa. [CAB/11/71]

Strike one for Campbell. As we now know, it was false even that Saddam had “sought” uranium, since the Nigerian documents on which this claim depended were forgeries. Still, it was a good attempt by Campbell to render the dossier more alarming by changing a word.

Campbell had more success, however, with another request . . .

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In a brilliant essay for the New York Review of Books discussing Samuel Alito?s accession to the Supreme Court, Ronald Dworkin writes of a revealing piece of coded language used by the administration: “unitary executive”. During the hearings, Alito was reminded that he had, in a 2000 speech, endorsed “the theory of the unitary executive, that all federal executive power is vested by the Constitution in the president”. Dworkin comments:

The phrase “unitary executive” has been much used by conservatives anxious to increase the president’s power, particularly in the “war on terrorism.”

Former Justice department attorney John Yoo, Dworkin reminds us, had appealed to the idea of the “unitary executive” as meaning “the centralization of authority in the president alone”, which is “crucial in matters of national defense”. What does such centralization of authority mean? Simply this: that the president is above the law. As J S Bybee wrote in one of the notorious torture memos (which are discussed in detail in Chapter 7 of Unspeak):

Congress can no more interfere with the President’s conduct of the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical decisions on the battlefield.

In other words, Congress has no right to tell the president that he cannot torture “enemy combatants”. Dworkin writes:

Bush has himself mentioned the “unitary executive” doctrine 103 times in the “signing statements” he has issued when signing bills in order to make it plain that he does not regard himself as bound by congressional restrictions; he was appealing to that doctrine when he declared, before signing a bill including the McCain Amendment banning torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners, that he would “construe” the act “in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief…”

So Bush planned to “construe” the ban on torture in a manner “consistent” with the opinion of his advisors that no one has a right to ban him from torturing. Clever, isn’t it? . . .

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According to the newly released minutes of his January 2003 meeting with George W. Bush (detailed in the new edition of Philippe Sands’s excellent book, Lawless World), Tony Blair said that:

a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs.

“International cover” is an evocative phrase. What was meant by it? “Cover” has various interrelated military meanings. It can be covering fire, as when a soldier shoots at the enemy in order to distract from his comrade’s movements. It can be a place to evade fire, a nook or ditch or wall. Or it can be a cover story: the fictional role of someone who is actually an espionage agent, as in the cover of CIA proliferation investigator Valerie Plame that was deliberately blown by a spiteful US administration, even after the CIA had already told Dick Cheney that the story of Iraq seeking Nigerian yellowcake uranium was untrue.

So why did Bush and Blair talk about “international cover”?

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