Blair at War

Last week we took the opportunity to visit the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square. Alas, we went a day too late to catch the sight of the square covered in grass. From the look of this photo from the bbc website it would have been a sight worth seeing.


Still we got to see the statue of one of my favourite imperialist wannabe-conquerors, Charles Napier (I'll try and explain why I like him so much in another post - possibly on my other blog). It was alas a dreary, rainy day. Here's a photograph I took of the National Gallery:


But the topic of this post is an exhibition we chanced upon at the National Portrait Gallery - a photo-essay called Blair at War. In the run up to the Iraq war, photojournalist Nick Danziger and Times correspondant Peter Stothard were given access to the PM and his cabinet. This exhibition showcases some of Danziger's photographs and its really an extraordinary insight into those times.

Much has been made of one photograph in particular, which was taken in the ante-chamber of the PM's office in Downing Street. In an article where he talks about this and another photograph, Stothard tells us:

It is 7.55am on March 20. The Americans have dropped their “shock and awe” on Baghdad somewhat earlier than their best ally had been expecting. Before the first War Cabinet meets its members are musing on how they heard the news: Gordon Brown from the BBC World Service, Jack Straw from a policeman pummelling at his door, David Blunkett from Radio Five Live.

And to make matters worse:

The current Prime Minister is on this occasion out of shot. Tony Blair, no slouch now at war leadership himself, is behind the closed door to the right – with his chief of staff and security chiefs, in the meeting which ministers suspect is “the real meeting”.

Here's the photo:


So that's how the British cabinet came to learn they were at war. Read the full article here, its quite interesting. Stothard has also blogged about it here. Zoe Williams in a piece for the Guardian also points out:

The woman on the right, looking like the "don't" photo in a dos and don'ts of how to mingle at a party, is Joan Hammell, special adviser to John Prescott. Subsequent photo-reporting will show her to be at the very core of Prescott's entourage.... Here, she is being actively excluded by these grim-faced men.

And then ends with this ringing endorsement of the Blair cabinet:

Before you even consider that they are on the wrong side of the door anyway (which, furthermore, is locked), these are still the last people you would want to be in charge of anything. You wouldn't let them babysit.

Not only did the cabinet have no clue that the war had been launched, but they were excluded from direct briefings about the course of the war by the military and intelligence chiefs. Stothard quotes a member of the cabinet as saying he was expecting explanations, but rarely received any.

The socialist worker also has a good article about the exhibition, as well as images of a couple more of the photographs. There's a very good one of Jacques Chirac lecturing Blair, having "waved away his aides and interpreters to give Blair his direct opinion on events". Chirac, you will recall was the most vocal global leader to oppose the war.

To round up I've leave you with this image of Bush and Blair with assorted aides at Camp David soon after the war had begun (from the National Gallery site). Nick Dazinger called it the 'Reservoir Dogs shot' because it mirrors the image of the opening scene of the Tarentino movie Reservoir Dogs. Heres the photo side by side with a still from the movie (taken from filmreference.com):



Reservoir Dogs is a movie about an attempted heist that goes spectacularly wrong and ends in a tragic bloodbath. Sound familiar?

IZ