14/12/2011 Newsnight

Tonight, who knew what and when, in the phone hacking scandal.

Could James Murdoch really have been unaware? Why did the Guardian

claim the News of the World deleted voice messages when they had no

evidence. The author of the Guardian investigation faces a

former News of the World executive and the television presenter, Anne

Diamond, tell us what it is like to be pursued by the tabloids. Will

the coalition split over Europe and the economy stalling, you think

these might be good times to be an opposition leader, so how can the

Prime Minister get away with shots like this. We all know he has

achieved one thing e has completely united his party. Every single one

of them has asked Santa for one thing, a new leader for Christmas.

Is the tide going out on Ed Milliband? Nearly nine years after

the invasion of Iraq, President Obama calls a symbolic end to

American combat forces there. How big a power is the United States in

the 21st century world? Lord Leveson, the man charged with

the public washing of much of the newspaper industry's dirty laundry,

asked the police today, to find out once and for all f they can, how

voice mails on Milly Dowler's phone came to be wiped. It was the

Guardian newspaper's claim, stated as fact, that they had been erased

by the News of the World, which triggered the shutdown of what was

once the biggest-selling paper in the English speaking world. But the

story wasn't true, or the hacking was true, the deleting was just

theory. The last editor of the News of the World was up at the Leveson

Inquiry to take his punishment today. We report now on where we

are. The most far-reaching inquiry into

the ethics of the press, led by the most senior judge in the land.

Featuring witnesses drawn from the world of celebrity. From the News

of the World itself. A newspaper brought down by the work of one

Manchester solicitor, who revealed how a murdered schoolgirl's phone

had been hacked. When the Guardian newspaper

revealed in July that News of the World had hacked Milly Dowler's

phone and voice mail messages had been deleted. The wave of public

revulsion was such that the paper was forced to close. The Guardian

had suggested a News of the World had deleted messages to create room

for new ones, which would then form the basis for stories for News of

the World. But that allegation is now at the centre of a huge media

row. The fact that News of the World

hacked Milly Dowler's phone is not in dispute. Newsnight has fresh

evidence of this. In April 2002, News of the World was in contact

with Surrey Police, leading the investigation into her

disappearance. The paper thought a voice mail message left be by a

recruitment agency meant she was alive and had run away from home.

On the 20th of April, a senior News of the World executive wrote to

They had Milly Dowler's PIN code, and were listening to her phone

messages during a live police investigation. How tragic that

someone, who has not courted the news, but in the news because they

happened to be a murdered schoolgirl, the News of the World

were hacking a murdered schoolgirl's phone. What about the

allegation that the paper had deleted messages. Immediately after

her disappearance on the 21st of March, 2002, Milly Dowler's parents

phoned her but could leave no message because her messages were

fun. But three days later Sally Dowlre got through. I phoned her

and it clicked through so I heard her voice. I thought she's picked

up her voice mails, she's alive, it was then, really. All of Milly's

messages had been deleted, but in a recent statement to the Leveson

Inquiry, the Metropolitan Police said it was most likely they were

deleted automatically by her phone company. But the Dowlre's lawyer

denies this means the Guardian got it fundamentally wrong. We know the

News of the World had Milly Dowler's phone number. We know he

had the pin number and hacked messages. We know hacking messages

can delete messages, we don't know if he deleted the particular

messages that gave false hope. Metropolitan Police say they

probably didn't? That hasn't been proved. Last night as we were

filming Mark Lewis, he received a call from the Mail, asking if the

Dowler's should pay back money received from News International.

The question was sick, it actually was depraved, it was something I

told him he ought to be ashamed of himself. This morning, the Mail's

approach was raised at the Leveson's inquiry. Lord Justice

Leveson indicated that the facts surrounding the deletions must, if

possible, be revealed. I do entirely understand the

significance of the issue. I recognise that it is likely to be

in the public interest that this be Another important outstanding

question is what, if anything, did James Murdoch know about the wider

culture of phone hacking at News of the World? He's consistently told

parliament that his understanding was it was limited to one rogue

reporter, the former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.

News of the World's former legal manager, Tom Crone, said he showed

James Murdoch an e-mail in 2008, that confirmed another journalist

was involved. I'm pretty sure I held up the front page of the e-

mail. I'm also pretty sure he already knew about it. And News

International has just admitted that James Murdoch was sent a

different e-mail in 2008, saying the situation was as bad as we

feared, and someone suing the company was intent on showing that

hacking was rife. Mr Murdoch says he responded in minutes without

It was a specific criminal act, the hacking of phones, that sparked the

Leveson Inquiry, but it has been the lurid tales of unethical

journalistic practice had a has been even more shocking. The use of

deception and invasion of privacy, is often justified on grounds of

public interest, where there is a bigger truth to be told. But some

of the evidence to the Leveson Inquiry has stretched the concept

of the public interest, way beyond breaking point.

Take Newsnight's story about News of the World putting the family of

lawyers investigating them for phone hacking under surveillance.

News International now admits that was completely unethical.

Take investigations into Charlotte Church's father, headlined

"Church's three in a bed cocaine shot" with her picture beside it.

Miss Church said her mother tried to kill herself. My parents who had

never been in the industry, apart from looking after me, were being

exposed and vilified in this fashion. Take the fact they paid

for details of her sex life, as a teenager. Why is it OK that an

editor or somebody senior in a newspaper could pay an unemployed

boy from Cardiff tens of thousands of pounds to reveal intimate sexual

details about another 17-year-old girl. This is not public interest

journalism as we know it? There was lots of public interest journalism,

every story we did had to abide by the PCC code. I was in features for

eight years and never had a PCC investigation over it. We looked

deeply at every story we did. Yes, there was salacious, celebrity-

driven content, but often with a public interest.

There were high points, for sure, cricket match-fixing and cash for

honours, but the Leveson Inquiry has produced shocking evidence of

deeply unethical practices with little or no public interest at all.

Anne Diamond and Lord Hunt chair of the Press Complaints Commission

will be talking soon. First we speak to the former head of

features at News of the World, and Nick Davies who wrote the original

Gardiner article about Milly Dowler's phone -- Guardian article

about Milly Dowler's phone. Because Mr Davies doesn't want to appear on

the same panel and Mr Casby didn't want to join us, he declined the

offer of a one-to-one interview. Let's cut to the chase, the central

allegation, the most scandalous of the lot, that a murdered girl's

voice mails were deleted by the News of the World, which you

claimed to be fact, it wasn't a fact? You are getting it all wrong

here. The story that we published in July was squarely based on all

of the evidence available, and was correct in saying that her voice

mail had been deleted, and it remains the case, that News

International are not denying that News of the World journalists may

have been responsible for those deletions. Let's put it up on the

wall. You are missing the point. The audience can judge for

themselves. Let's look at the front page. News of the World hacking

Milly Dowler's phone during police hunt. Then it is "paper deleted

missing schoolgirl's voice mails giving the family false hope", you

say the messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days

after Milly's disappearance. You don't know that. You are getting

the problem slightly wrong, you have misunderstood it. The problem

was whether or not they were responsible for deleting the

particular messages that caused the friends and family to have false

hope. That is now in doubt. If you just follow what is going through

here I will explain. Do you know for a fact what you state as a fact

in this article? Everybody who was involved in that story accepted it

was true. It is very interesting that when that story was

published...you are not allowing me to answer. No I'm not, you are not

answering. You have asked the wrong question, you see. I'm so sorry.

You have misunderstood the problem. I want to answer it. Was it true?

That story was, everybody involved with that story believed it was

true. The day after I published that story I sat down for two hours

with Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of this

thing. He issued an apology, he didn't disagrow with a single word,

News International didn't deny it. You stated it as a fact rather than

a police belief? Everybody involved in that story accepted that story

was true, and continued to accept it, until, four months later, new

evidence that was not available to everybody's surprise, showed that

one element of that story is now in doubt. It has not been proved to be

true. It is a key element. Just like Mark Lewis said, it is in

doubt. You don't report it as a belief, you report it as a fact?

And everybody accepted that it was true. The police accepted it in

London and in Surrey, Mulcaire, the private investigator, News

International. It had the same level of certainty. It clearly

wasn't a fact, you have just conceded it wasn't a fact, you said

people thought it was true? They accepted it was true, nobody

dissented from it. New evidence, not available at that time. In

retrospect it is now in doubt. They are not saying it isn't true. You

are still getting it wrong. They are saying it is conceivable but

unlikely that the News of the World was responsible for that particular

deletion. It was an allegation he repeated 34 times as well. This

wasn't any old story, this was the story that was the most important

story in the Guardian's history. It was vital every single element of

it should be right. Let's get things in proportion, your

newspaper had hacked a murdered girl's telephone? I'm not here, I

don't believe the News of the World has been exonerated. What we did

was indefensible, not just to Milly, but all the victims of hacking, I'm

not here to justify that, I'm here to attack the shoddy journalism of

the Gardiner and Nick. He said it was -- of the Guardian and nick. He

said it was believed by everyone to be true, there was a statement by

News International at the end saying we are looking into it. They

were a rabbit caught in headlights, they had been caught out misleading

people with the one rogue reporter theory, we weren't going to make

that mistake again. They weren't confirming anything to anyone.

you think they should have been closed down? I'm not here to defend

the News of the World, I'm here to atact Nick's journalism, it is not

just down to this story. Just a week later after this sensational

claim, he claims, in a front page story again, that the Sun hacked

into Gordon Brown's medical records to reveal his son's cystic fibrosis.

The Gardiner did apologise for that story. That could have had the same

effect on the Sun that Milly had on the News of the World. This man

accused widespread criminality at your newspaper, he should be

applauded for that? There is parts of the Guardian investigation that

is great, but the other media, which has treated what the Guardian

has said as fact, for the last five months, it is only now that that

the Guardian's journalism is coming under scrutiny. A lot was fact?

lot was fact, but there was significant smears and untruths.

have published more than a hundred stories revealing immoral, criminal

behaviour by the newspaper where you worked for 15 years. Just look,

for example, at the Gordon Brown story which you have just raised.

Gordon Brown's wife Sarah gave birth to a child, the doctors said

this child appears to have a very serious illness wrecks need more

tests. During that period when they were waiting to confirm it, the

Sun's discovered the confidential information about this sick boy.

Any decent newspaper would say we can't publish this, that newspaper

chose to. That put enormous stress on those parents. I have

interviewed Gordon Brown on the record. He says when the Sun

decided to publish that information, he and Sarah Brown were in tears.

Subsequently we published a story about it, we didn't say the Sun

obtained that Bihacing, you have just made that up. Let me finish.

The Sun gained access to confidential medical information,

at one point in the story I used a different term of words, I said

"gained access to confidential medical records", I couldn't prove

they got to the file. This is the difference. The Guardian corrected

and apologised that. When did the Sun apologiseor doing that cruel

and inhumane thing to those parents whose sick child will grow up and

discover all these horrible stories about his past. I'm not here to

defend the ethics of the Sun and the News of the World, I'm here to

take the shoddy journalism of the Guardian. You have misrepresented

what we said in the Gordon Brown story, it is a matter of wording.

On the Gordon Brown story. don't you apologiseor it. You have

never apologised for the terrible things. Words matter. We have

apologised for it on this show, and every senior executive has

apologised, Rupert Murdoch said it was the most humble day of his life.

Where is your humility in this. have huge humility, I'm not saying

we are exonerated in any way. are in a heap of trouble, for years

you have taken Murdoch's money and invaded and ruined people's lives,

and engaged in criminal activity. You have had private investigators

who have broken the law, haven't you, would you like a list of the

people. Let's go through the lists of the hundreds of Observer

journalists that made requests. hired a private investigator who

was doing illegal things to get information, isn't that true. Why

won't you admit the truth, isn't it time for some humility. Didn't you

hire a private investigator. the Observer journalist doss it,

and the current Guardian journalists. You accuse me of

shoddy journalism, and your name is all over of a private investigator

convicted of using illegal means, information about Anne Robinson,

about John Penros and Anna Friel. Let's name some of the Garden

journalists. I want to broaden this and move it on. Anne Diamond you

have personal experience of being on the receiving end of this sort

of attention from the tabloid press. You had a personal tragedy with

your child. Tell us what happened? I must say I just find it

unbelievable that anyone from the News of the World can sit there and

be outraipbled that somebody might have got a fact wrong, that

somebody might have misrepresented them in some way, that someone

might not have apologised fully. That is incredible to hear. Now you

now what it feels like. My particular story then, according to

Rupert Murdoch's butler, I was targeted by News International in a

very early stage, because I took Rupert Murdoch to task for the

behaviour for some of his newspapers. It came to a head when

1991 my little boy died. We knew, my husband and I knew that we knew

the level of press interest there would be. Mindful of the fact that

Eric Clapton son's had died a year before, and the funeral had become

a press circus. Newspaper photographers and reporters were

falling over other people's gravestones and trampling flowers

to get a picture of Eric and his girlfriend at the funeral. We wrote

to every Fleet Street editor and said please stay away, this is an

incredibly private moment. A photographer did turn up. Within a

couple of hours of the funeral, my husband was rung by the editor of

the Sun, and they said we have a photograph, it is incredibly strong

we want to use it. My husband begged them not to use it. They ran

it all over the front page the next day. What has gone wrong in the

culture of the media in this country? It is partially

commercially run riot, to sell papers, it is partly this deeply

self-perceived culture in the paper that everything we do is right, we

are above the law. It doesn't matter if the High Courts say it is

a grotesque invasion of Max Mosley's privacy. They have set the

agenda for themselves for so many years, we live in a press world now

where the climate, the values have been distorted by the worst

journalists there. I'm a journalist myself, I'm a print journalist by

training, I'm ashamed of the some of the things they have done. They

have been allowed so long it has set the climate. How can you live

in it? I won't justify what happened to Anne. I'm as moved and

upset by what she's saying as anyone else. It happened 20 years

ago. This is one thing t happened over a long period. I am not alone.

You are the features editor of the News of the World, how does it

feel? There is lots of fantastic public interest journalism we did.

Nobody disputes that? Things went wrong. I'm not here to justify what

happened to Anne 20 years ago at the hands of the Sun under a

completely previous regime. And the News of the World, not just the Sun

or the News of the World. It was a culture you guys were allowed to

set. What was it went wrong? People made mistakes, there is no doubt

about it. This was industrial scale phone hacking? I'm not here to

justify that, I don't think the News of the World has been

exonerated. I think, you can justify the closure of the paper,

even. I'm not here to do that. I was here to talk about the Guardian

getting things wrong and the Guardian misrepresenting. Now you

know how it feels. Just a little tiny glimmer, that is all you are

getting of what you have put other people through for many, many years,

now you know how it feels. It feels a sense of moral outrage. That is

what I see from you today. And that's what so many people have

felt for so long. You are still playing the same tabloid distortion

game. We publish more than 100 stories, confirmed in evidence by

police and inquiries and in civil actions and you pick on two error,

one of them very significant in the Milly Dowler story, one of them

really minor in the Gordon Brown story, and you distort the truth

and try to pretend that means we are guilty of shoddy journalism.

least you are accepting the errors. The distortion is wrong. Take a

leaf out of Rupert Murdoch's book and get humble, or go quiet, people

don't believe you any more. We will not be bullied by people like you

any more, we have had enough of you. You have just taken over as head of

the Press Complaints Commission, it is a hopeless task, isn't it?

of all, you have to recognise that the press is not being regulated.

The body I have inherited, the Press Complaints Commission has no

regulatory powers at all. I come in as a lawyer, specialising in

regulation, everyone I say this to agrees. So we don't have a system

at the moment. I have resolved that we will now have a system and it is

up to me to put it forward. How are you going to do it? First

of all, listening to the tragic stories, coming out of not just

Lord Justice Leveson. You haven't got teeth? Listening to the tragic

stories, like the ones we have just heard, and acknowledging, as I

think, all of us would, that we are proud of the freedom of the press

in this country. We are proud of investigative journalism, Anne

knows that a number of stories came in behind causes that she was

pushing. So we have to preserve that. But we have to have some

regulation, we have to have some standards. That is going to be my

job, to find a way of persuading people, not just in parliament, not

just in the press but the public, that we can have a system of self-

regulation of the press. Do you believe in self-regulation? No, I

don't. All the years I have spent, when I went into broadcast

journalism in the end. I used to think why is there one set of rules

for the press and another set of rules entirely for broadcast

journalists. Broadcast journalists are still able to do fantastic

investigative journalism, wonderful campaigning, the standard of

journalism is still very high in the BBC and elsewhere. Are you in

favour of a Ofcom for newspapers? think so, for the press. The power

to fine the stories? The popular press have nothing to fear from

this. They need to embrace it. We could all pull up the standards of

the popular press in this country. Not through statute, I don't like

the idea of putting the press in the hands of the politicians.

have had 20-odd years of self- regulation, and it hasn't worked.

We had the press council before that, that didn't work either.

don't think we have ever had proper regulatory control, even from

within the press, or even from independent sources. Do you worry

about what some of the consequences may be. The consequences for

investigative journalism for a free press? There has been some nasty

backlash and bad ideas put about. There has been a crackdown within

police forces to try to stop any kind of unauthorised contact

between police officers and journalists. That is a very, very

bad move. I don't want to live in a world where the only information we

can get out of a police force or Government department is what is

authorised by the boss. That is the kind of information tyranny that

you create. Unauthorised contact is central to the free press. So there

are nasty bits of backlash going on. That is not to deny the problem. I

have stopped believing in the self- regulation of the press.

Principally because of the grotesque failure of the PCC over

the phone hacking scandal. Twice they produced report, my editor

described them as "worse than useless" that was kind. There was a

structural failure in there. This is not a bunch of starchy nannies

sitting around in Holland Park eating digestive biscuits and

hoping they are obeying the rules, this is a deeply competitive

industry, routinely breaking the law and stabbing each other's backs

in order to sell newspapers. You are not interested in being

regulated are you. Let's pause for a moment, you condemn the PCC, many

people have, and have said it many times. I look at the PCC and say to

myself what regulatory powers does it have. What powers of

investigation? The answer is none. In a way the PCC is being judged by

powers that it never had. I have got to work out how we can have

shows powers, within an independent, self-regulatory system, that is

what I have set my task to do. investigation and enforcement,

there are two different problems to get to the truth and enforce.

reconvene this later. It is a truth universally

acknowledged that the weekly Punch and Judy show in Westminster has

taken a lot more seriously by the political masters than normal human

beings. How they perform at Prime Minister's Questions, and it was

the last of the year today, can determine whether a party leader

lives or dies. Today, given what he obviously thought was a golden

opportunity, Ed Milliband was left looking like a man who chooses his

best suit and tie for a job interview, and then enters the room

realising he has forgotten to put his trousers on.

Hi everybody. Hi daddy. Apparently when Ed Milliband goes to the

United States, he gets mistaken for this chap, star of the hit HBO

comedy, Everbody Loves Raymond. And, well, you can kind of see why.

was your day? There was, though, no mistakes Mr Miliband for a comedian

today. His attempted gag ended up coming right back at him.

Let me say, it is good to see the Deputy Prime Minister back among us.

The Labour leader might have thought he had some promising

material to work with, after the row between the PM and his deputy

over the EU veto. Calm down, calm down. This is what he said, this is

what he said in his new year's message for 2011, I will place a

copy in the library of the House, Mr Speaker, just so everyone can

see it. This is what he said, "coalition politics is not always

straight forward, but I believe we are bringing in a whole new style

of Government ". Mr Speaker there is more, there is more. "a more

collegiate approach", Mr Speaker, I'm bound to ask, what has gone

wrong. I will answer. I will answer. Look,

look, no-one in this House is going to be surprised that Conservatives

and Liberal Democrats don't always agree about Europe. But let me

reassure him, he shouldn't believe everything he reads in the papers.

No, it is not that bad, I mean it is not like we're brothers or

anything! More. More. He certainly walked into that one.

Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, ...The Labour leader did the best to

recover, but you could see the pain all over the faces on the Labour

benches. Of course anyone can have a bad

PMQs, but the worry concerning Labour MPs as they head towards the

Christmas holiday is this. With the economy flatlining, the

Government's deficit reduction programme not working, and public

splits in the coalition that you could comfortably drive a bus

through, why on earth aren't we doing a whole lot better. Dan

Hodges used to be an adviser to the Labour Party. Today's PMQ was bad

for Ed Milliband, but the key turning point was the Autumn

Statement. Labour MPs were hoping and praying that would be the

moment where the public rumbled what they see as the George Osborne

failed economic strategy, and start to embrace Labour's, the reverse is

the case. The Tories are increased their lead in terms of economic

competence, and eradicated Labour's opinion poll lead. That is the

thing that is really now terrifying Labour MPs. What they are saying,

is we can't beat the Tories and get a significant lead over the Tories

now, with this cascade of bad news, how are we going to do it in two or

three years time when the economy, even sluggishly starting to improve.

Indeed the polls at the moment are no joke for Ray's British lookalike,

everybody, it seems, does not love Ed. When compared with other

leaders of the opposition, Ed Milliband's net approval rating is

worse than David Cameron or Tony Blair's were at at this point. Only

Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard, and William Hague did worse, and

they never made it to Number Ten. When you look at how his polling

splits up, it is clear what happens. A large number of the "don't knows"

at the start of the Miliband leadership has disappeared, but

they have decided they don't like him. What sort of qualities do the

public see as Ed Milliband possessing or not possessing?

one area where he still scores reasonably well is being regarded

in touch with ordinary people, not too bad on honesty. Where his

ratings really fall down are things like being strong, decisive, good

in a crisis, a the natural qualities of a leader. Those

figures are really very low. It is very hard to win an election in

opposition with a leader with those kinds of scores.

That is what I was going to say. too. I'm sorry. Maybe the Labour

leader should take some solace from regime mond, he may get in a few

scrapes but he -- Raymond, but he may get into a couple of scrapes

but he usual comes good in the end. Hilary Benn is with us. Do you

think he's doing a good job? I do. Why isn't he more popular? Look we

had our second worst election defeat in 2010. If you reflect on

what's happened since then, we have 65,000 more members, 850 more

councillors. We have won four by- elections, but it is a long haul.

Why not polling better than the Conservatives, unemployment is

rising, the economic strategy is not working, the Prime Minister has

delivered something the Deputy Prime Minister has said is bad for

Britain? Most of the years you know we have been ahead in the polls.

You are not now? No, and there may be a short-term effect from what

happened last week. In the end it is the character of leaders that

will win out. And David Cameron's problem is that he his economic

policy is not working, as is now evident, and the British public are

beginning to see that, but it will take time for the full failure of

that to become clear. Let's discuss David Cameron's problems with unof

his friends, you are Ed Milliband's friend and I want to talk about his

problems with you. How is it that a third of Labour voters are

dissatisfied with his performance? Look, the country is going through

a tough time. We lost an election. What happened in the past is bound

to be reflected in part, in how people perceive Labour now. But,

really important questions are, who is thinking about the future of the

country. So you assert...I'm Reflecting on the riveting item on

the programme there. Who demonstrated courage in the course

of the year in taking on News International, breaking with the

politic consensus there for a very long time, it was Ed Milliband, and

David Cameron was left following in his wake. You must acknowledge that.

In the interests of clarity, can you tell us what your position is

then on David Cameron's wielding of the veto in Brussels the other

night? Well it wasn't a veto was it. I will tell you what our position

is, a veto is intended to stop something happening. You would have

signed the pact would you? there wasn't a treaty. Is there a

treaty, I don't know if Newsnight has hold of a copy of the treaty.

The right thing for the Prime Minister to have done would be to

stay in the room, make sure British interests are protected and the

truth is, he has walked away. These negotiations will continue and

Britain will not be there. We have handed over, actually, power to the

French and Germans, that is a reflection of his weak negotiating

position and the fact he's derfied of his backbenchers. If --

Terrified of his backbenchers. your leader was Prime Minister,

what would we have agreed to? would have put in the work before

the negotiations, there is no good in turning up as the Prime Minister

and throwing down some demands and saying if you don't agree I'm off.

We should be there trying to protect British interests. Would

you have agreed to the treaty changes or not? There isn't a

treaty in place, there isn't even a draft treaty, is there. If Britain

had agreed it, there would have been a draft treaty? There is not a

draft treaty. Clearly there isn't now? Now they will have to

negotiate it. This will happen over the next few months. That is a

position Ed Milliband would have put us in? We need to be there to

protect British interests, no party leader will agree to anything not

in the British interests. By absenting himself he has put

Britain in a difficult and dangerous position. Your's is a

kind of in and out position, the hokey cokey approach? It is not, it

is about defending the national interest, but making sure we are

there at the table. You cannot do that if you are not part of the

negotiation. Isn't the truth that the only thing we know about Ed

Milliband is his struggle with his brother, that is why David

Cameron's joke worked so well? microclimate of Westminster people

can laugh at Prime Minister's Questions. It is the only thing

they know about him? David Cameron remind me of other Conservative

leaders, he has bad judgment and good jokes. Ed Milliband is the

only one thinking about the future of the country, what we will do

once the deficit is dealt with. He understands the change that brought

about the economic crisis we face, that is what the speech to

conference was about this year. A lot of people are saying he's on to

something. You will stick to him through thick and thin? I certainly

will, I backed him from the start. He showed courage and determination,

he doesn't flinch when the going is tough, he's the right person to

lead us into the next election and he will.

President Obama thanked American troops for their service in Iraq

today. A symbolic end to the deployment of combat forces there.

This dumb war, as Obama called it, has cost America the lives of 4,500

of its citizens, to say nothing of over a trillion dollars in cash and

the lives of uncounted Iraq year, all to destroy the regime of a man

who turned out not to have weapons of mass destruction and not to be

backing Al-Qaeda. Where does this campaign leave American power.

It has been an odyssey of pain, division, and as far as the US

troops were concerned, unbending commitment. But America's war in

Iraq is over. And the President who opposed it today tried to find the

right words for those who is predecessor had sent into harm's

way. It is harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that

American troops have done in Iraq. All the fighting, and all the dying,

the bleeding, and the building and the training and the partnering,

all of it has led to this moment of success.

Until even a few weeks ago it was assumed that a few thousand US

troops would remain to assist the Iraqis with special counciller

terrorist operations. As it became apparent that -- counter terrorist

operations. As it became apparent that negotiations to secure this

had failed, there was fury on the right, that is those who believed

it was worth fighting accused the administration of squandering its

sacrifices. The truth is, this administration was committed to the

complete withdrawal of US troops in Iraq and they made it happen.

Senator McCain that is simply not true. I guess you can believe that,

and I respect your beliefs. respect your opinion, but the

outcome has been exactly as predicted. That is not how it

happened. It is how it happened. This is about negotiating with the

sovereign country. An independent country, this was about their needs.

The view that the biggest beneficiary from the past nine

years has been Iran has currency on the other side of the political

argument too. They believe that President Bush's invasion destroyed

the peace of Iraq, and has allowed the country's neighbour to benefit

in all sorts of ways. There was a long standing expectation, going

back at least to the 1980s, that a relatively powerful Iraq posed a

necessary bulwark to prevent Iranian expansionism into the Arab

world. Well that bulwark has now been seriously weakened as a

consequence of the US intervention. Of course, the enormous cost of

Iraq has had a deterrent effect on future intervention abroad. Almost

4,500 US soldiers killed, more than 32,000 wounded, and some of these

figures are controversial, something approaching 150,000

Iraqis, who have died in the violence, and a bill of more than

$1 trillion. The US made disastrous mistakes at the start, but they did

learn quickly. With new tactics and a troop securing, at least they

were able to pre-- surge, at least they were able to prevent civil war.

The US forces to maintain a sense of discipline and cohesion, over

the course of these many years of combat, really is remarkable.

On the other hand, if we evaluate the performance of senior military

leaders, the people at three and four-star ranks, those who have

managed the war in Iraq, and are managing the war in Afghanistan

there, it seems to me, that there is considerable work to be done.

Falluja, where the Americans used their greatest force, there was

relief today that it was all over. Most Iraqis supported American

withdrawal, and will be glad for an end to what they regarded as

occupation. But, a few hundred US advisers

remain in a training role, and the two countries are vowing to

continue strategic co-operation. If you look at the demand for

energy in the future, and Iraq's capacity to meet some of that

demand, as significant as that is, frankly, not to mention the fact

that we are sitting on the western flank of a potentially nuclear

armed Iran. When you stop and think about it from a strategic

standpoint, it is maizeing how important this stick country is in

this -- amazing how important this particular country is in this

particular region. What remains at the end of this fight, a fractious

Iraq, in a dangerous region, and the United States chastened by the

sacrifice and force of unintended consequences, trying to forget the

enormous cost of what it did. To discuss the state of the

American foreign policy, from Stanford University, we are joined

by the former Bush policy adviser, and from New York, we are joined by

Ian Bremmre, er, President of the - - Bremer. Do you think the United

States, which leaves Iraq, is the United States, in any sense, in

terms of power, that went into Iraq? Oh sure, I think it is the

same in lots of senses. But I agree with the point of your question

which is that the costs of the Iraq war for the United States have been

so significant that I think it is quite unlikely we will choose to

solve problems elsewhere that they have solved by force in Iraq.

Do you see it the same way? More or less. I mean the United States has

the capacity if it wants to engage in your Iraq, even economically,

but there is no way Americans would support it. Libya is a much better

example of what the United States is doing militarily nowadays. It

was only after the Saudis, the Arab League came at the Americans and

said plos get involved, and then the French and then the Brits, and

only then did the Americans say yes, but only with all of these

conditions. That is much more of the military engagment you will see.

Keep in mind Obama still has to leave Afghanistan. He won't be

giving the kind of speech in 2014 on Afghanistan, if he's around,

that you saw him giving on Iraq today. Here in Europe, Libya is

seen as primarily seen as a European-led military mission,

which involved very, very troops on the ground. How do you see the

United States trying to prosecute its military and political mission

abroad in future? Well I think if you look at the way the United

States has engaged problems of terrorist threats in Yemen, in the

Horn of Africa, and in other places, what the Obama administration's

strategy is focusing on is fewer troops on the ground. Lots of

intelligence information provieed by people living in the countries,

lots of surveillance information provided by the United States over

flying those countries, and precision strikes. That is good at

killing terrorists, it is not good at changing the way the people who

live in this country feel about their vulnerability to us attacking

them. It is good for one piece of the country but not good for all.

What came away from the film I just heard was the sense that Iran is

being emboldened by the fact that the United States has pulled out,

Hussein isn't there. Iran's political position isn't an

advantageous one, Syria, Bashar al- Assad is literally on his last legs

and surrounded regionally and internationally, that will cause

problems for Iran and Lebanon as well. The GCC, Saudi Arabia, having

a much pronk stronger role on the gulf operation council, co-

ordinating countries which have tilted more closely to Iran. Iran

has problems internally between the Supreme Leader and the President.

There is no question that Iranians want a bigger influence in Iraq. I

see the problem with Iraq is major defragmentisingation and

decentralisation, with the Kurds and the Sunnis wanting their more

autonomous region, and the Shia, that is more of a problem. I don't

see Iran becoming a mass of political threat because of Iraq.

Isn't it a lot more difficult for the ufpl states to intervene abroad,

given the state -- the United States to intervene abroad, given

the state of the feeling about the United States in the rest of the

world? Yeah, I do think it would be more difficult for the President to

encourage public support for major interventions overseas. I think

part of the reason that President Obama was so hesitant to go to

Congress for authorisation for the use of force in the Libya campaign,

for example s that he didn't want to risk public reaction to it. So I

do think there is a hesitancy on the part of the American people. I

would say that is ameanable to leadership. And when it matters for

the United States to use force to protect and advance its interests,

it is the President's job to build public support for that. The other

thing it is ameanable to, is events. Who would have predicted, I know

9/11 was predicted, but George Bush did not set out to have a major

interventionist policy overseas during his presidency, 9/11 changed

all of that, didn't it? That is certainly true. The 9/11 era is

over. We saw that also with Bin Laden. I think that one of the big

ships we have seen has been -- shifts we have seen, is the United

States now focusing on Asia, not on the Middle East. That is a place

given the concerns on China on both sides of the electoral divide. You

will see the United States being more actively involved, several

administrations has been you cut your teeth on the Middle East live

or die. This administration has decided that is not where they are

going to be. They will get a lot of international support among Asian

allies for that. Thank you very much indeed.

That is all from Newsnight tonight. A storm brewing, but the calm

before the storm brewing. It could be an icey start but many of us

having a reasonable day with some sunshine inbetween the showers.

Quite a mixture through the afternoon for example, there will

be band of showers pushing out through parts of the Midlands, some

of those showers will be wintry, mostly falling as rain to lower

levels, on either side sunshine hanging on. Showers hanging on in

the London area. Breezy but the winds not excessively strong, wet

and windy across the far South-West of England as we end the day, a

sign of things to come. That rain pushing up into the far South-West

of Wales. Most of Wales having a reasonable interlude, some sunshine

through the afternoon. For Northern Ireland too, I think after a

showery period things will tend to dry out for a time in the afternoon.

Scotland looks like having a cold, cold day, lingering fog patches,

and the services could well have been -- surfaces quite slippery.

Wet and windy overnight across the southern half of the UK, that is

snow across Wales and the Midlands. That is one to watch. The worst of

the conditions gradually clearing away on Friday, left behind a cold