The London Blasts: Media Review

DAY 84: 29 September 2005

Contents

Interview - Denial Straw Style

Interview - Denial Blair Style

Note: Our apologies but we've only had time to transcribe this morning. May get a chance to comment later. Until then, it speaks for itself!

INTERVIEW - STRAW

We start with an interview with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on the Radio 4 Today programme, Wednesday 28 September (JNV transcription). The interview - by John Humphries - opened with the issue of realism/denial:

Today: 'That is right isn't it, Mr Straw, it must be right that we are at greater risk [of terrorism] because of our involvement in Iraq.'

Straw: 'I don't know is the answer, and I don't think any of us know. What I do know is that the threat of international terror was there well before Iraq, not just thinking about September the 11th. Some people think that it happened after the military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. It actually happened before and triggered the first, the Afghanistan invasion, and set part of the context for the second. I also know this, that even if there had not been the military action in Iraq, we would still be facing this kind of terrorism, and if for example you take the Madrid bombings... [the change of government in Spain did not lead to end of al-Qaeda plotting] or for example, if you look at Beslan, the Russian Federation were opposed to the Iraq war, it did not in any sense allow them to escape this same kind of fanatical terrorism which claims wrongly and totally perversely to justify its terrorism by reference to Islam.'

Today: 'The fact is though that this country was not the focus the target for Islamic terrorism until after we had invaded Iraq.'

Straw: 'Well, it happens in terms of sequence that you're correct but you're asking me...'

Today (interrupting): 'But isn't that the whole point?'

Straw: 'No, it isn't. Because there were British people killed in the United States, there were...'

Today (interrupting): 'Coincidentally.'

Straw: 'Hang on a second, coincidentally, I mean the point about, there were Muslim people killed in the United States, you may say coincidentally...'

Today: 'Indeed.'

Straw: 'The point about these terrorists is that they are indiscriminate. If you're not for them, you are against them. Both of us are debating an hypothesis about what if we had not invaded, not taken action, in Iraq. My view is that it is impossible to answer that. '

'However, I just repeat the point that this international terrorism, al-Qaeda-based terrorism, goes back at least a dozen years. Now, there was a whole string of attacks against the United States and also against various of its allies, killing and maiming people who came from around the world.'

'There's also been a continued campaign against the Russian Federation, which had nothing whatever to do with the invasion of Iraq. And my own belief is that this phenomenon would have been there in any event.'

'And plus I just make this very important point. Nothing justifies this terrorism. We can debate forever the causes of the rise of Nazism, but nothing ever justifies what the Nazis did.'

Today: 'No, of course not, nothing I said was suggesting that.'

Straw: 'What the Nazis did, just as nothing can conceivably justify what happened on September the 11th, nor what happened on July the 7th or the 21st.'

Today: 'Of course not, nobody is arguing any of that.'

Straw: 'I do say, we have to examine the responsibility of the terrorists for it, and not - and I'm not suggesting you are, but some do - going for this kind of moral relativism, which suggests that we who as it were represent the victims are somehow responsible for this phenomenon.'

Today: 'And that's exactly not the point that I am making to you. But if the situation is as you describe it and we have in effect always been a target albeit it didn't actually happen until the 7th of July when did 'the rules of the game' change?' [This leads into a discussion of 'anti-terror' legislation]

INTERVIEW - BLAIR

This morning there was an interview with Tony Blair on the Today programme which also address the realism/denial issue. The interview opened with the eviction of Labour Party heckler Walter Wolfgang and his (brief) detention under anti-terrorist legislation, leadin into an extended discussion of anti-terror legislation and the criminalisation of thought, and finally onto the connection between terrorism and Iraq. The theme of the interview - again by John Humphries - was 'the rules have changed', Blair's famous words from 5 August.

Blair: 'Well I personally think the rules should have changed a while ago and we should have tried to tighten the law but I think that what I mean by "the rules have changed" is that whereas before we might even give asylum to someone in this country who was then going into the local community and then, you know, preaching this type of hatred, I think now you've got to say, "I'm sorry.." '

Today: 'But why now?'

Blair: 'Because people can see that this isn't scaremongering, we've actually had a terrorist act in our country and these people were British-born.. er.. people whose minds frankly had been turned by this type of vicious and appalling propaganda directed at them.'

'And the point about it is that if this were merely a question of freedom of expression or speech, in the sense that no one was going to get harmed by it, well, fair enough, and there are plenty of daft things that people say and plenty of daft things that people do, that's fair enough, that's part of life's rich tapestry.'

'But when they are doing something that may turn someone's head so that they then go down on a tube or a bus and kill completely innocent people, then I think people will expect me as prime minister to act on that and if I'm not acting, to say, well, come on, whose civil liberties come first in this situation?

[Next section is 8 minutes 30 seconds into the interview]

Today: 'They [the 7/7 bombers] had certain amount of support from a certain section of the Muslim community because they said, some of them said, to the extent that we can tell what they said from the messages they left behind, that it is what happened in Iraq that caused them, in part, to do it. Do you accept that link?'

Blair: 'I accept entirely that they will use Iraq as I've always said to people, they use Iraq, they use Afghanistan...'

Today (interrupting): 'So we are less safe as the result of our attack as a country as a community we are less safe because of what was done in Iraq.'

Blair: 'No. Because what I would say is this. That in the end if you look at this terrorism worldwide, they use whatever cause they need to use.'

Today (interrupting): 'And this gave them a cause, to attack us specifically.'

Blair: 'But it's not just Iraq that is their cause. It's also Afghanistan. It's what happens in Palestine.'

Today: 'But this is an attack on Britain.'

Blair: 'Yes, I appreciate that, but if you look at the propaganda that goes in to create this appalling sort of mix of hatred and extremism, yes it's true they will use Iraq, but before Iraq there was Afghanistan. September the 11th of course happened before either of them.'

Today: 'That was against the United States. I'm talking about the security of this country for which you are responsible.'

Blair: 'I know, but you see John, I think that when they attacked the US they didn't just attack the US, that was my point in my conference speech, they attacked the Western way of life, and the reason why I took the decision - and I know it's difficult and people disagree with it - but I took the decision following September the 11th, that our position was shoulder-to-shoulder with the US in fighting this worldwide and I still think that is the right position.'

Today: 'Even if it has made us a less secure nation?'

Blair: 'But I don't believe, at least in the long term, that it will make us less secure. I think it is important for our security for example that there is democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and we've got to stay the course and make sure we get it.'

[Interview then goes back to discussing anti-terror legislation.]

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