11/01/2014 Dateline London

There is a full bulletin of news at the top of the hour. Now on BBC

News, Dateline London, with Gavin Esler.

Hello and welcome to Dateline London. The battle for Fallujah,

this time in 2014. Is the invasion of Iraq more than a decade ago

resulting in the country falling apart now?

Do fears about immigration mean it is time to re-think the EU's core

policy of free movement of labour? And is the President of France

entitled to a degree of privacy in what he claims is his private life?

My guests today are: Jef McAllister, who is an American writer and

broadcaster. Annette Dittert of Germany's ARD. Nabila Ramdani, who

is an Algerian writer. And Ian Birrell, of the Daily Mail.

The battle for Fallujah a decade or so ago was one of the turning points

in the American attempt to deal with Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Now there

is a new battle for Fallujah, as the Baghdad government tries to

establish its authority. Is the hard truth that in 2014, Iraq, like

Syria, is facing a sectarian war, a strengthened presence among

extremist groups and a future in which the

how do you see what is going on? The current situation in Iraq, like

Syria, is horrific and there has been a state of perpetual conflict

since the US-led invasion in 2003 in Iraq. The figures of the number of

Iraqi people who died since 2003 speak for themselves, they are quite

a grim grommet and evidence of what a disaster the Iraq war was from

start to finish -- barometer. More than half a million died since 2003.

2013 was the most lethal year as far as the figure of the people is

concerned with more than 9,000 people, and more than 250 people

since January. This is an indication of the horror following the invasion

and the nature of who is fighting who. These things take a long time

to work out, do you think what we are seeing is ultimately a drawing

up of the boundaries the imperial powers imposed and that as a state,

Iraq and Syria do not function, so we will see a Sunni area, a Shia

area? We are seeing that already. The country looks to be on the brink

of a sectarian war and the Civil War, Iraqis against Iraqis. Tensions

are very much around a Shia led government, US backed. Which is not

effective, massively corrupt, and marginalises the majority of Sunni

Arabs. And the resurgence of Al-Qaeda fighters in groups like the

Islamic state of Iraq and the love font practice in Iraq fighting and

in Syria. -- Levant. The complex of feeding each other. I was struck by

the comments and Colin -- by Colin Powell, if you break it, you own it.

At the contribution of the Americans has been to get out and to say I'm a

sort it out. -- but the contribution. The stupidity is

becoming more apparent and it has opened up changes, it has listed the

power of Iran. It has widened divisions between the Sunni and the

Shia across the region. There is a weakening of America 's relationship

with Saudi Arabia which is significant. Iraq is not yet Syria,

Syria is in a worse state. 100 times worse. There is crude politics of a

central government imposing its will on the country. We are seeing the

same thing across the region, the unleashing of forces of

sectarianism. And it shows the stupidity of the invasion and the

weakness of the West, the UN and everyone else, to be engaged. You

have proxy wars going on across the region fought by lots of different

players and it is impossible to see how it will end except badly for the

people living in these regions. How do people in Washington see this?

The American public is perhaps different, but this is the year when

withdrawal was taking place from which -- from Afghanistan, we are

told that has gone well and they are getting out will stop anybody

looking out -- they are getting out. Anybody looking at recent history

may say that is not the case. The mood in the US, it did we have

anything to do with this? -- did we. Almost a wilful attempt to forget

and to move on because it is a mess. There is a sense among policymakers

that they made all contributed to the mass at there is no idea of what

to do next so people have given up -- MS, at there is no idea. -- a

mess. We need to do more than what we are doing to change things and

there is no appetite for that and did not work well first time.

Afghanistan is not is excess but there is no will to stay longer than

necessary -- a success. Have we created more centuries for a trader

-- for Al-Qaeda? In Syria, they are looking for Americans who are

fighting to send them back for terror in countries because they

will look the part. We have unleashed a can of worms and there

is a sense of regret and some people feel guilt in the US that we have

done wrong, but there is no political willingness to do more.

The 21st century started with optimism and the words liberal

intervention, people did think they were doing good things. Even with

President Obama and in the case of Afghanistan, that is probably worse

for him personally because this was his war when he came to map -- when

he came to power, he said Iraq was wrong, we will do it right in

Afghanistan. At the end of this year, he will pull out and not have

this important bilateral security detail he wanted to have with

President Karzai. The rest -- the relationship with him is getting

frosty. The former Defence Secretary will publish next week a book where

he will accuse President Obama of having no strategy with Afghanistan.

He says they have traced to oust President Karzai in 20 -- in 2009.

There will be no orderly retreat, there will rather bleak been no

bilateral security deal -- there will be. So some sense of military

presence is not secure so this could be the next big thing waiting to

happen. Robert Gates is at the heart of American policy-making and he is

scathing about the vice President, Joe Biden. It will damage the

relationship with Afghanistan immensely. In the future, given the

complexity of the players and what Saudi Arabia does, Turkish interests

in Syria, will this play out over many years? Not just in Iraq and

Syria but elsewhere will stop so the thing about the Arab Spring, --

elsewhere. So the thing about the Arab Spring is also nonsense? The

Syria case has moved it, it is a war I proxy. Syria has the elements of a

nasty conflict, it is a sectarian war, it is a war by proxy, pitting

Sunni against Shia. With Afghanistan, it is optimistic of

David Cameron to save the mission of British troops will be completed

when Britain leaves by the end of 2014. In Afghanistan, we will see

sectarian divisions play out and regional influences play out in

Afghanistan. Do you think that is what politicians have to say, the

degree when they have inherited a conflict? -- Pittodrie. Because

nobody wants to think troops have died in pain. So politicians will

say it is for a good thing? Absolutely, more than 5,000 troops

on the ground, written has spent more than $30 billion and 12 years

later, people must see through that -- Britain. The country is still not

stabilised, there is still corruption, and who will be army and

city? -- the Army answer to. We have seen it in the United States, there

is a reluctance to get involved abroad which the politicians

understand because they hear it from constituents. There was a noble aim

behind the right to protect which came out of the wonder genocide and

the failure to intervene and there have been successes. -- Rwanda.

Sierra Leone was a great success and what happened in Mali was welcomed

by the people and was a noble intervention and very necessary. The

tragedy is that you have this growing isolationism which you are

seeing in America and Britain and across Europe and combined with this

revolutionary process going on across North Africa, the Middle

East, sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, and we got used to be

idea that revolutions were easy in 1989 with what happened in Eastern

Europe. The revolutionary process is long and difficult and unpredictable

and you combine that with sectarianism and other fact is, we

are yet to see what will happen with Saudi Arabia -- factors. There has

been a corrosive presence around the world. Things are going to happen

and we are just at the beginning of a process.

One of the core principles of the European Union is the free movement

of labour, although as we have seen with Romania and Bulgaria in the

past few years, there have been attempts to restrict that freedom at

least for a time. Does the unease in Germany and Britain in particular

over immigration mean it is now time to re-think some of the core

principles of the European Union? There is great unease in Germany. We

know what is happening here, but also Germany. It is interesting what

has happened in Germany this week. This immigration debate was at a low

turn but last week, there was a case of a remain young woman living in

Germany for three years -- a Romanian. She applied for benefits

and was denied and she went to the European Court and the European

Commission yesterday morning at out a statement to say Germany cannot

automatically deny that, which sparked a major pro in Germany. Not

only in the right-wing parties but also in the party of Angela Merkel

who said they could not interfere to that degree. This Rose to a point

that the EU commission yesterday had to send out a spokesperson to

clarify what they had wanted to say was not that automatically you have

to pay out benefits, but that you have to look at the individual case

closely. It was interesting as this debate has not been high profile in

Germany. There is no anti-EU undercurrent. But it is a sensitive

thing that even in a moderate country like Germany, the EU

commission has to be very careful what they say and how they say it.

You have written a lot about this. Supporting the idea of immigration

is good for this country, would you accept, like the Labour Party, that

is a difference big Queen freedom of Labour if you have a job? -- big

difference between freedom of Labour. I do not accept that. Labour

are panicking as the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have and they are

doing anything to say, we understand, we are on your side.

Polling shows that has not been a change in attitudes over 30 years.

There has always been hostility to immigration on a national level and

at a local and personal level, it is not a big political issue and that

is not -- and people do not understand that. You saying that

people think it is an issue for the country but if you ask them if it is

an issue for them personally, they say it is not. 70% say it is an

important issue for the country but personally, people are interested in

the cost of living, jobs, housing, education and health. The benefits

debate here before Christmas was a phantom debate. The new regulations

that David Cameron presented in accordance with existing EU big

elation is. In Germany, you do not have access to benefits for the

first three months. That was nothing revolutionary. It is never about the

policy. UKIP was running the debate. What they should be doing is

standing firm and saying, we need decent border controls which we do

not have, everybody ignores that, we will be tough on illegal

immigration, which people ignore, and we will recognise there is a

role for people coming here. They are hitting people like students who

are popular and good for the economy because they are the only people

they can attack. EU immigration was up 9% and

politics is you have to it somehow. Colleges of further education have

had a further drop in students. It is scrambling around. If you look at

the statistics and the polls in the last ten years, they have

contributed a net ?23 billion to the Exchequer, whereas British citizens

have taken out ?604 billion because they take more benefits than the

Polish. The Polish are contributing more taxes than taking at benefits.

They are relatively good citizens. There are pockets where services may

get overloaded in certain cities, but it is our rivers of blood speech

still. There are 5 million Britons living abroad and we never hear

anyone say, we do not want Britons in the Costa Del Sol. It is always

the other way round. Also we were talking about the services used by

immigrants. If you took every immigrant person out of providing

those services, you would not have many services anyway. We have to

reconsider the whole principles of the European Union, but it is a bit

too late. It does not seem to be the case. One of the point was to allow

freedom of movement across borders and that is good for individuals.

This idea you can have a European a la carte menu is absurd and having

countries picking what they like and blocking what they do not, it does

not work like that. If you are going to accept a highly motivated

architect, you have to accept underqualified people from Bulgaria

and Romania because this is what the European Union was designed for. I

have got many concerns over aspects of the European Union. It is

incredibly wasteful, the drift towards federalism will not work.

But one of the few good things about the European Union is it is about

trying to have fair trade and free movement of labour and it would be

crazy if we threw out the good things it was doing and kept the bad

stuff. That will never happen anyway. That is what I find so risky

about David Cameron's referendum strategy, that he keeps the hope up

that they will be a renegotiation of some cornerstones of the EU, but

that will never happen. Francois Hollande is said to be the least

popular president in France's recent history, now after a magazine

published he was having an affair with an actress he has threatened

action. With such a high-profile figure, they must have all aspects

of their character scrutinised. If a British politician was caught in

similar circumstances, there would be a big row, but they would not be

a lot of options to pursue legal action for privacy. It is attacking

the right to privacy. He has been such a disastrous president and such

a failure on the economic front, this might be the first thing he has

done which might be remotely popular! But he manages to ruin even

this by turning up with a motorcycle helmet and getting his croissants

delivered by a security guard. Allegedly. He turns this into fires

which sums him up. How do you think this is seen in France? A lot of

reports I have heard hearsay French people I thinking he is not a great

president, but he is entitled to a degree of privacy. What has changed

in the coverage is the role in which the Internet cannot stop stories

spreading around the world. Secondly, the media in France are

less reverential and they are drawing justifiable links between

the private life of a head of state and indeed his public life. He is

very much somebody who is accountable and cannot claim the

right to have a private life and certainly not using state money to

carry out such a deceit and put his own security at risk. These are the

discussions in the French are having at the moment. Whatever you think of

his politics, he has never held himself up as a moral role model, he

has never gone on about how wonderful marriage is. He cannot be

accused of hypocrisy because this is not an area where he has shown any

interest in discussing these matters publicly. The crucial element is the

position of France's first lady. She is still entitled to hundreds and

thousands of pounds on her five civil service staff and that is

without considering luxurious accommodation, transport and her own

bodyguards. There was a legal case against her last year, a complaint,

for effectively stealing taxpayers' money because of her unofficial

status in France. Francois Hollande is notoriously known for having an

indecisive mind, but he will have to sort it out. I do not think the

French will accept he will have two girlfriends and crucially who is he

going to take to see the Pope at the end of the month? The problems of

office. We know what happened to Bill Clinton. I covered that and I

have a certain sympathy that leaders should have private lives, but in

this case he is the president of a republic and it reveals something

about his character. If the French want to forgive him, they are

entitled to, but I think they should know. The idea that you could cast a

net of privacy over Europe private life, I think he has to have it out.

France is also in economic turmoil with unemployment rising, the cost

of living and taxes being sky-high and clearly the president has his

mind on other matters. It has been said time and time again that

Nicolas Sarkozy was spending far too much time at the beginning of his

presidency is speaking about his love life and achieved very little

for France. It seems Francois Hollande is going down the same

route, in spite of claiming he was offering an alternative to the

vulgarity of the previous office. Some people said Angela Merkel makes

eggs for her husband's breakfast and this was a revelation about her

private life and some people said, she is just a little woman and other

people said, she is keeping things together. In other words, you cannot

draw a line between what is public and what is private when you use

parts of your private life to create a political personality. Definitely,

although she very rarely uses it. She tries to protect her modest

lifestyle. You could also say, there I am, I do my shopping in the

supermarket. She does all that? She does do all that, really. She even

saves on her electricity, that is true. She is the least glamorous

person in Europe. That is probably why she has been successful. Looe

exactly. That is why when her telephone was hacked she said it was

not interesting and I believe her. But she was still annoyed. Some

politicians are happier to have their family life in the media

because they want to be portrayed as family people. But once you start

down that road you open yourself up to different scrutiny perhaps. You

understand a politician and a leader better by understanding more of

their private life. But in 15 years time we will not be having this

debate because privacy will be a thing of the past because of

technology. Even a fridge can monitor your movements. We are

moving into a different era. The younger generation is more

comfortable with it. The whole idea of privacy for humanity is going to

change. One of the things that strikes me with the Clinton example

is people could not believe the American people would forgive him

and in the end they did. People are grown-ups between the different

about what affects them and the stupidity of their leaders. I used

to do the radio broadcasts and 60% of people said that. They can make a

difference. Maybe it was dangerous to have an affair in office with an

intern. It was not a high-class affair. We are back next week at the

same time and you can comment on the programme on Twitter. Goodbye.

A pretty decent weekend coming up all in all. Across the