26/06/2014 Newsnight

dropped by Syria as the country's future looks more bleak, was our

past involvement in 2003 a mistake. In retrospect yeah, I'm not seeking

to evade or avoid my responsibilities for having made

that decision. The Foreign Secretary at the time tell uses us we -- tells

us we got it wrong. We are live in Baghdad.. The Iraqi Prime Minister

tells us he welcomes the Syrian air strikes as he struggles to hold it

together. What have the license fee and this posh house in the country

got in common. More than you might think. The decades of Jimmy Savile's

de-Paris Match vow are revealed in an official inquiry. We will ask how

he was able to get away with it for so long. Growing up I was a soccer

fan, I'm enjoying being an American. They may have lost to Germany but

they have done better than England. Is it time to get behind America's

bid for World Cup glory. ?TRANSMIT The Iraqi Prime Minister said thank

you for bombs that dropped on his country today, such is the dessprat

state of affairs that he welcomed President Assad's Syrian plane that

is struck on insurgents on Iraq's borders, and he has ordered his own

fighter planes to help from Russia. But when the Foreign Secretary,

William Hague, met with Nouri Al-Maliki today, he urged him and

leaders from every part of Iraq, Sunni and Shia, to unite to stop a

descent into chaos. William Hague said Iraq faced an existential

threat, and he said there could only be a political solution to this

crisis. We heard similar words earlier this week from John Kerry.

We have heard words from Iraqi politician, including the Prime

Minister, about forming an inclozeive new Government. But if

you look at what's happening on the ground, those words feel very much

like just that. Hollow words. If you look at Iraqi television at the

moment, hours and hours of footage of young men, volunteering to join

militias, brandishing guns, going off to fight. If you speak to

Sunnis, many say they feel frozen out of stake in this country and in

the places where ISIS is in control, many in the north and west, many

Sunnis are supporting that group rather than their own Government.

Clashes and skirmishes are still going on, mainly again in the north

and west, which is quite some way away from where I am in Baghdad.

Perhaps because of that distance in the capital itself there is a sense

of uneasy calm. In a city used to everyday violence a sudden spell of

calm is not necessarily good news. In Baghdad these past few weeks

there have been fewer bombings than usual. But Iraq is struggling to

hold itself together and the capital feels like an uncertain place.

Baghdad feels weirdly quiet, the streets look almost deserted

compared to what they usually are, that is because many people are

leaving town. Some have gone up north to fight against ISIS, but

others have been telling us that they are leaving town simply because

they are scared to stay. The region's geopolitical alliances are

morphing. On Tuesday, an air strike just inside Iraq's borders was

attributed to the Syrian air force. Until recently Iraq accused Syria of

stoking unrest in the desert heartland that straddles the two

countries. Now that area has become an embryonic kalafat, led by ISIS.

In an interview today, Nouri Al-Maliki said he and President

Assad, both leading Shia Government, share a common enemy. TRANSLATION:

Syrian jets struck an area inside the Syrian side of the border. There

was no co-ordination involved, but we welcome this action. We actually

welcome any Syrian strike against ISIS because this group targets both

Iraq and Syria. So we welcome any Syrian strike against ISIS as we

welcome any Iraqi strike against ISIS. This bakery in a predominantly

Sunni district of Baghdad, prides itself on the fact it employs people

across the sectarian divide. Some Sunni workers have taken fright,

preferring to return to areas with ISIS rather than take their chances

in Baghdad. TRANSLATION: People are detained every day, if a group of

young guys is walking on the streets, they will be arrested. The

security forces treat them badly, pushing and beating them. He says

years of what he sees as devisive rule by Nouri Al-Maliki's Government

is to blame for the current crisis. TRANSLATION: All this is happening

because of the behaviour of the security force, people are treated

unjustly, thousands are in prison and it keeps on happening. This

sense of fear and alienation has been key to the success of ISIS,

without the support of local Sunni tribes they would struggle to hold

the territory they have captured, and their rapid advance towards

Baghdad has prompted a show of force from the Shia community.

Militia groups have been attracting thousands of new recruits. In Sadr

City on Saturday the army was on parade. Followers of the cleric Sadr

say they will only protect religionious shrines. Others have

been directly involved in fighting againsties circumstance some receive

support from Iran, not all support the Mall mal-Government. -- Nouri

Al-Maliki's Government. TRANSLATION: We have our own leader, we don't

follow anyone else, our leader is clear in what he says, if he says

march we march, we are under the command of Al-Sadr. ISIS is a

regional and international problem, Saudi rainia and Qatar and other

occupying forces have allowed this group to enter Iraq through Syria.

There is an air of unreality about the playground on the banks of the

Tigris. Most of the children will be born after the invasion, memories of

the sectarian Civil War that followed are still Treasury. The

return of the militias is making many uneasy. ISIS is carving out an

empire, its power now stretches all the way from the banks of the river

Tig risks s in Iraq, west to the -- Tigris in Iraq and west. It is not

clear how long it will hold this vast swathe of territory, but it is

changing the geopolitical calculus. Clearly the Iraqi military needs

help to defeat ISIS, the militias are part of the strategy, so is

Iran, the west is still trying to figure out what to do. Meanwhile the

frontiers of the Middle East are shifting and Iraq lies right across

the fault line. 28 hospitals, five decade, victims

of five years old and 75, the numbers speak for themselves,

revealing the span and horror of the TV presenter Jimmy Savile's less

public activities. A report into just one element of his behaviour,

how he connived to gain access to abuse patients in the NHS was

published today. You may find some of this report distressing.

Decades of access to hundreds of vulnerable patients. Jimmy Savile's

obsession with hospitals started in his home town of Leeds. Jane was 16

when she was sent to Leeds General for tests, she was taken by the star

to buy sweets, the next day he asked to see her again in the back of the

hospital. It didn't drag me in, he pulled me in, he gently got hold of

me, pulled me in and immediately started to kiss me. With this

tongue, at the same time his hands, his left hand went on to my right

thigh. I got hold of my hand and he then started to masterbate himself

with my hand. I was trying to make some sense, there were three nurses

on the ward when I got there, and I said you know, they looked at me and

I said you never guess what's just happened and I got as far as Jimmy

and they laughed and I never got a chance to say much more than that.

Savile worked at the hospital radio station and then in the infirmary

itself, as a porter, a fundraiser, a volunteer. He could often be found

alone at night, sitting patients' beds, talking to staff. The abuse

was widespread. Investigators in Leeds found 60 cases over 50 years,

including three of rape. The victims were between five and 75. A

ten-year-old boy was sexually assaulted while he waited on a

trolley for an X-ray. Teenagers recovering from surgery were abused

in their beds and there was even talk of an obsession with dead

bodies. The allegations about his behaviour in the mortuary are

incredibly harrowing and disturbing. What we do know is that his interest

in the dead was pretty unwholesome and that the controls around access

to the mortuary, up to the early 1980s were not robust. So many

people say how come a showbiz punter is doing a job like this at the

world number one mental hospital. By the 1980s Savile was closely

connected to a very different type of hospital, Broadmoor in Berkshire

housed 250 of the most disturbed psychiatric patients in the country.

He started visiting in the late 1960, eventually he had his own room

and was even put in charge of a task force to reform the hospital. We

know now that Jimmy Savile was given his own set of keys and the run of

the hospital grounds here. How then did a television star, with no

medical background end up in such a position of power over so many

vulnerable patients? In the early 1980s Naomi Stanley was a

psychiatric nurse in Cambridge, over the period of months she gained the

trust of a young patients transferred from Broadmoor, she

claimed she had been raped by Savile on multiple occasions, when she

tried to pass on the allegations, she claims she was ignored. Intense

annoyance and irritation like I had really spoken out of turn and they

looked to the male staff to get me into check. The nursing officer said

to me if you ever, ever speak like that again in any kind of meeting,

particularly with people who have come from outside you know you are

going to be disciplined or you are going to get sacked. Today's report

found 11 allegations of sexual abuse by Savile at Broadmoor, six involve

patients, two staff and three children visiting. The authors say

the real numbers could be far higher, given the chaotic number and

vulnerable nature of the people inside. It also raises serious

questions about the man running the hospital for most of the 1990s. Alan

Frainey was brought into Broadmoor on the recommendation of Jimmy

Savile himself. He held a mid-level position at Leeds General Hospital

where he met the star and went running with him. Back then Ray

Roden was the senior civil servant responsible for secure hospitals,

now retired to Spain, he claims he was shocked ZAF had so much freedom

and question -- Savile had so much freedom and questioned Frainey about

it. When I questioned him about it I was told I failed to understand how

valuable the involvement was from this high-profile celebrity. I

argued it felt some what voyeuristic to me. What I didn't know at that

time is he had a set of keys to the damn makes had I known I would have

gone ballistic. You have been named in the report. Yes I know that and I

have had advice from the Department of Health to make no comment. He was

not willing to talk to the BBC today. But in statement to Newsnight

this evening he said: Broadmoor, Leeds Hospital and the

Health Secretary all apologised to Savile's victim today. Many say

lessons still nod to be learned. We need to be more open and transparent

as to what goes on within the walls of places like Broadmoor, and if

there are serious allegations from patients, they should be taken

seriously, because we now know that the women who would not have been

believed should have been believed. They have been proven right. In

2011, Jimmy Savile's body was carried past Leeds General Infirmary

on the way to the City's Cathedral, thousands lined that route, three

years later his fall from grace is complete. Some of his victims, at

least, have finally had their say. With us now are Dr Peter Jefferies,

who was an independent inspector of Broadmoor during the 80s and Esther

Rantzen. The appalling nature of his behaviour is not a shock to u what

is shocking today is the scale of it and the places he was involved in.

The list here of more than 20 hospital, Broadmoor, Leeds, St

Catherine's, Dewsbury and District, the list goes on? The nature of his

crimes is still a shock. Reading what he did to vulnerable people,

whatever their age, particularly the very young, and disturbed, and with

mental health issues is just revolting. It is a measure of his

status, his role within society at that stage. He was a sort of clown

saint. He managed some how to manipulate us all to believing that

he was funny, entertaining and doing an awful lot of good. And that mask

was impenetrable. I met the man half-a-dozen times, I never felt I

knew him, there was always a very strange creation, he created this

personality. But I didn't actually see behind it the depraved, sadistic

paedophile we now know existed. These were the most vulnerable

people in the most vulnerable positions. Dr Jefferies two of the

most astonishing cases in Leeds, and the complete absurdity of what

happened at Broadmoor. You were acting as an independent inspector

during that period, going in and out every six weeks. You were there and

part of it, how on earth was he allowed to have that kind of access

to that kind of place? I don't know how he was allowed access, but it

was in an era, it was a closed institution. There were abuses of

patients by the existing staff and doctors in some case, patients were

not being treated with consent, not being complied with the law. And

reports by the inspectorate that I was part of regularly, in writing to

the hospital and the Department of Health were ignored. For years. But

who thought that part of the solution would be to get a BBC DJ

with no medical qualification or background to help sort it out. Who

thought that was a good idea? The report today both confirms the

closed institutional problem but also draws attention to the senior

civil servants who suggested Savile's name both to be on the

board initially and then to be part of the task force. If you were one

of the people inspecting it, surely there should have been some

discussion or monitoring of who was coming in and out? The access issue

was unbelievable and the report today confirms the totally

unsatisfactory nature, but to give Savile responsibility for management

of the hospital, someone who had no previous experience and skills, is

unbelievable and it meant that apart from his abuse of vulnerable people,

it was no way to sort out the problems of institutions that needed

sorting. Could you believe what happened at Broadmoor? The other

terrible thing is that none of these allegations, none of them, were put

to him during his lifetime. He didn't have to face any of these

extraordinary tragic stories. But people did try to raise the alarm,

as we heard in that film? The trouble is that under our current

judicial system, what happens is that you have the evidence of the

victims, or the survivor, and then you have got this adversarial

system, whereby the defence tries to undermine, confuse, make nonsense of

the allegations, and that means if you have got someone with mental

health issues, or you have got a very young child, or you have got a

child in a children's home, the police will look at that or the

investigators look at that and think they haven't got a chance in hell of

having their story believed by a jury and it never gets any further.

That still happens. Witnesses are still being put up against

cross-examination designed to undermine their credibility in an

adversarial system that still makes it very, very difficult to bring

cases. One group that represents abuse victims believes it could

still happen today. Briefly to both of you, do you think it could still

happen today? I think we are aware now that being a celebrity is not

the same as being a saint. I personally would be quite sorry if

stars weren't able to have access, for example, to terminally ill

children in a ward for whom it means a lot. Although I have been to

hospitals and hospice, never alone, it is never a one-to-one thing, it

never happens behind closed doors and nobody has ever given me the

key, thank the Lord. Do you believe in the kinds of settings that this

kind of access can happen again? I don't think this kind of access

could happen again. Individual access and abuse of vulnerable

children, adults and mentally ill children will continue, and we need

inspection regimes and management that challenges it and prevents it.

Very briefly do you think currently have the regimes and are they strong

enough? They are stronger than they were, not yet strong enough.

Now, EastEnders, Radio 3, Newsnight, of course, website, natural history

programmes and even the Great British Bake Off, if you are into

that sort of thing. There is a very long list of what your ?15. 50

license fee pays for, what might surprise you is also on that list.

An information monitoring service that does work for the Government

Intelligence Service, including providing information that most BBC

journalists cannot see. BBC Monitoring has existed for decades,

but last year the Government stopped paying for it, leaving to you pick

up the bill, and now Newsnight has learned BBC bosses fear that is

compromising the corporation's independence.

It is perhaps the BBC's grandest outpost. Staff here just outside

Reading monitor the broadcasts of foreign radio stations. They also

translate and analyse printed media and on-line material from around the

world. The vast majority of that material is available to all BBC

journalist, I have used it myself for many years. This is one of the

BBC's least known locations, buried deep in the Berkshire countryside,

it looks like a magnificent country home, but you don't have to wander

very far in the grounds here in the parkland that surrounds the house to

realise that there is something less stately and less gentile going on.

An ancient mansion in a Pastoral session. With its landscaped acres,

a worldwide listening post. It has been going on for decades. The

Soviet Union by its action in illegally invading... . The

Government used to pay for all this, but last year BBC's Monitoring ?28

million budget switched to license fee funding.

But there is still a close relationship with Government. An

official document defining the functions of the building describes

some Government ministries and intelligence agencies as key

customers of BBC Monitoring. The Government still funds some work at

the building, such as monitoring Jihadi websites and forums, and the

Government can commission and pay staff to produce material for them.

Some of BBC Monitoring's output is marked "for official use only, not

for broadcast". It raises the question why is a part of the BBC,

some of whose staff are vetted by the Government, doing work for the

intelligence agencies? This Government is trying to divest

itself of a whole number of functions, if Cavan if they are

going to do this on behalf of the Government let's throw open the

windows and understand what they are doing, why they are doing it and

what impact it has on the BBC's core purpose of public service

broadcasting? Now Newsnight has learned that at the highest levels

of the BBC there is concern about whether some of the work being done

is unsuitable for a public broadcaster. I understand that as

part of the charter renewal process, the corporation is seeking to hand

over responsibility for the parts of monitoring that are what one source

described as inappropriate for the BBC. BBC monitoring insists it only

uses publicly available so called open sources, and that it is not

gathering intelligence. It says it does look at some password-protected

Jihadi forum, but only on occasions when the password protection has

been lifted. . Internal e-mails obtained by Newsnight shed light on

the relationship between BBC Monitoring and the Government. This

is an e-mail from someone described as the MoD account manager. It shows

the sort of information that BBC Monitoring is being asked to find.

In this case material on a money transfer network believed to be

involved in funding and supplying weapons to the Taliban. And this is

how the BBC press office explained monitoring's relationship with the

intelligence agencies. The BBC has also told Newsnight that

the customers, including the Government and intelligence

agencies, not only commission work, but also control whether the

material they pay for is shared with BBC News journalists, and if so,

which ones. The BBC says that while most of Monitoring's material is

distributed widely within the BBC, some of the reports it produce, such

as those on Jihadi websites can be seen by only a handful of designated

journalists. A small number of reports commissioned by clients are

not available to any BBC News journalists. A former BBC executive,

who had responsibility for BBC Monitoring says such restrictions on

the circulation of material produced by BBC staff are unacceptable. When

what you are doing is to provide material to Government sources only,

and not to anybody else, then I think that you are deviating from

the principles of journalism. I think that is very, very worrying.

It is not only worrying, actually, it is extremely dangerous, and I

think it should not be done and is not consistent with the principles

of BBC journalism and certainly the BBC's world standing in integrity.

There are lots of restrictions on movements around this building,

downstairs there are BBC staff working in operational areas where

we have been told we can film, but I can't be filmed in those areas. And

then there is the activity upstairs. There, there are Americans working

for an organisation called the Open Source Centre, some of whose staff

is recruited by the CIA, and that area is totally off limits. The

reciprocal relationship with the Americans goes right back to the

Second World War. It has been a sort of open secret. The Americans gather

open source material from some parts of the world, and the BBC covers

other parts. They then share most of the material. But with BBC

Monitoring, now license fee-funded, the partnership with the Americans

looks increasing an axe nestic. As for the -- anachronistic. As for the

American material it is more tightly controlled than the BBC documents.

While I'm told it may be able to get original documents it can't

guarantee doing so. It would seem to make sense some of the activities

done here to be done by the Government, such as GCHQ, but at the

moment it remains the case that some of the material produced here by BBC

staff can be seen by Government officials and not seen by

journalists in the rest of the BBC. Earlier I spoke to the BBC's

director of strategy and digital. We have, and it is a well established

tradition in the country that the BBC is independent of Government. It

was you that said that, that's vital isn't it? It is absolutely vital we

remain independent from Government and we try to protect that the whole

time. What we saw in the report was evidence that BBC staff have

effectively been acting as sub--contractors for the

intelligence agencies. How can that be appropriate, how can that match

up at all with that aspiration, that dedication to independence? Let's

look at the facts of what they are doing. This is all publicly

available information, we declare exactly the fact we are doing it

with the intelligence agencies and a range of other people, with the big

global news agencies, some of our best universities, companies, and

what we are doing is going through publicly available information and

providing a cuttings and analysis service. Why does the Government

then restrict some of the information to a tiny handful of BBC

journalists, if it is all just out there any way? The vast majority of

the information is just directly available, Newsnight uses it a lot

of the time. They were uncouraged as part of the last license fee deal to

go and get more commercial revenue. You are one of the people

commissioning a report, you could have said we won't shape any of.

That we have tried to find an arrangement so all the insight is

available to BBC journalism, and it is, to the audiences watching this

evening. If you could see the questions they were asking, that

might undermine their ability. Some of it is not available, you admit

that? All the insight and information is available, the

questions aren't always. If Panorama were pursuing a story you wouldn't

know the questions they are asking, that is exactly what we do, so they

ask and get these commercial reports. So it is the reports that

are not available. It is not just the questions, not all of the

reports that are produced there are made available? The information on

the inside is all available for BBC journalists. Not the reports? We are

looking at that, charter is coming up, we are setting up a working

group for the Trust with Monitoring to go through all of these things.

There are issues in the report that can all be looked at. What this

suggests though is at very senior levels of the BBC there is a view

that up until now it has been OK for the Government to decide which BBC

journalists get to see information that has been commission bid the

intelligence agencies and with links to the CIA, and in some cases to

decade that no BBC journalists are allowed to see any of that

information at all, and that's OK? The new management can team came in

and we asked ourselves a lot of questions, that is why we looked at

this last year. There is very good answers, as your report showed, to

the vast majority of the questions. If anything needs to change in the

charter review and in the short-term we are happy to look at it. As

things stand now, to be clear, you believe that all of the information

should be shared with any staff that want to see it? As things stand, if

I wanted to see information from a Jihadi website, for example, that

was gathered from Monitoring, as a BBC journalist I wouldn't be

allowed? It is a point of default. It is a point of principle? The

insight and analysis is all available to the BBC journalists.

When people commission a report they can say that you can't share the

insight. But it is you can see it and you can't see the questions. You

we could work on a commission basis and make it available for all. We

are looking at putting more on the website. What do you think license

fee payers watching right now, having clicked on the website today

and listened to the radio through the day what do you think they would

think of some of their ?145. 50 being used to fund an organisation

that has associations with the CIA? So, I would say to them, look at our

Syria coverage, amazing coverage, which has been vitally informed by

the work of BBC Monitoring. We wouldn't be able to do it without

them. We couldn't afford to do this if it was just for BBC News, we

wouldn't be able to do this. What about some of the evidence we saw in

that film, the request for specific information about a Jihadi network,

that is not exactly the kind of thing that you get just from looking

up on the web what was on the newspaper yesterday, looking at

cuttings, it is not the same thing? That is exactly the kind of

information that has been vital in our serial reporting n Iraq, ISIS,

Ukraine. There is a real benefit. Was it available to every single BBC

journalist? All the insight is available to the BBC journalists and

making a difference to audiences day in day out. We are happy to have a

look at this in the next period up to charter review, to see if we can

make it more transparent, and throw the windows open even more. Should

it be part of the conversation that the BBC just stops doing this kind

of work for the Government all together, wouldn't that be better?

This is an historic accident that we have done this. But actually you get

a huge amount of value as a BBC journalist and audience from the

fact it is here. You can change the arrangement. Now it is paid for by

the license fee? Could you change the arrangements but you could lose

the ability to monitor all the sources. Would it be OK if it is

fine for the Intelligence Services to request, commission reports from

the BBC, would it be OK for them to commission a report from Newsnight,

from other parts of the BBC for the Today Programme, that is the kind of

relationship you are talking about and defending? This is all put out

on the BBC Trust website and put under clear rules and they provide

that to a wide range of people, to news agencies, businesses,

newspapers. We are happy to look at widing reening that. -- widening

that. You were the Culture Secretary for quite some time, when you were

Culture Secretary, would you have been happy for the funding of

Monitoring to move from the Government into the license fee, so

that our viewers, radio listener, website users, were paying for this

kind of work to take place. Would you have been happy with that? I'm

not the Culture Secretary any more, I work for the BBC, a deal was done

for five years for the charter period, we won't renege on that. We

will work with Government to look at how BBC Monitoring can thrive in the

future and what the right arrangements are for the next

charter period. Now, what happens if you vow to fight something to the

end, then it ends badly. David Cameron is probably about to find

out. When the candidate he demorse becomes, as expected, the new

President of the European Commission. That is despite his

objections. And concerns over Jean-Claude Juncker's drinking

splashed on the front page of tomorrow's Telegraphof tomorrow's

Telegraph. It does looks a if he's going to hit defeat. This time he

doesn't have a veto, this will be subject to majority voting and the

cards are stacked against him. Only a change of heart by Germany or a

decision by France, if you like, to remove a prohibition on Christine

LaGarde stepping in to Jean-Claude Juncker's place could change this.

Both things look unlikely, it does seem the UK will find itself alone

when the leaders convene tomorrow. Thank you. Earlier I spoke to Jack

Straw, the former Foreign Secretary, and no stranger to these sorts of

deals. I put it to him that David Cameron is perfectly entitled to try

to block Juncker? He's well within his rights and indeed Ed Miliband

and Douglas Alexander have said on behalf of the Labour Party they

don't think that Juncker is the aproper rate candidate --

appropriate candidate. My criticism of David Cameron is not about that,

but his dreadful tactics. He has gone about this in a way that was

almost calculated to ensure he was going to lose, although I'm sure he

wanted to win. Particularly by going as a former, very distinguished and

very guileful British diplomat John Kerr has comment tated today, he

went for the man and not the ball. And that's fine if nobody noticeds,

but if they do it is -- notices, but if they do it is dreadful. David

Cameron has tried to make the case in public, and right across the

public the European elections suggested very heavily this is what

publics across the continent wanted. Is it right to make the case so

publicly? It is right to make the case, but it is what you want out of

it. People criticise Tony Blair, but I have seen him operating when we

correctly decided that the Prime Minister of Belgium was ppropriate

as a federalist, and almost nowhere Governments conjured up Barroso and

he has been relatively successful. But the back channels and doing it

behind closed doors is not very democratic. Isn't that the problem

the EU, people think it is completely remote? It is remote, it

is just the way of the world. The issue here was not whether Mr

Juncker was more or less better than the alternative candidates, but what

he stood for, his set of values and record. That is what Mr Cameron

should have talked about, the fact that we need a different leader in

Europe to make the change that everybody is saying we need. In a

nutshell, less Europe, but better Europe. I think everybody believes

that we are not going to get it from Jean-Claude Juncker. Juncker will be

the next European Commission President? I'm pretty convinced he

will. The truth is Mr Cameron could have come away from this summit with

a success, or be on the road to success, instead he has come back

with a failure. Talking about persuasion, you were the man who on

the behalf of the UK made the case at the UN for the war in Iraq. Now

you see the turmoil of recent week, Syria bombing the borders today, do

you feel any responsibility for that? Of course I feel a sense of

responsibility. I feel a sense of responsibility every day and I think

anybody would. Those huge events in 2003, the invasion, has had some

effect. What we don't know what effect that has had, nor do we know

what would have happened in Iraq except that I think it would have

been pretty awful, had we not removed Saddam. And the frustration

is that after the surge, the American-led surge in 2006/7, there

was a period of relative stability, a real opportunity to bring the Shia

and the Sunni and the Kurds together for a period. It looked as though

that could be achieved, but sadly it has gone the other way. Do you agree

with Tony Blair that there should be targeted and effective, his phrase,

intervention in Iraq, western intervention? I don't think I take

that view in quite the terms that Tony talks about it. I'm much more

sceptical about the value of, for example, drone attacks. They might

work, and it is a matter for the Iraqi Government, principally. But

in Afghanistan drone attacks have not been as forensic as people were

suggesting and you often end up with a lot of innocent people being

killed. Peter Mandelson told Newsnight last week that going into

Iraq was a mistake, honestly made but still a mistake, is your

reflection like that? I put it slightly differently, I have

explained why I made the decisions I made, for which I take full

responsibility. They were right at the time, but had we known then what

we know subsequently, which was for the whole basis of the military

action, which was the threat from weapons of mass destruction, was not

well founded. There would have been no case whatever for entering into

the war. So it was a mistake? In retrospect, yes. What I'm also

seeking to do is not evade or avoid my responsibility, having made that

decision at the time. Take a look at this, an American President watching

the football on TV on air force 1. Air Force One. America didn't beat

Germany tonight, no doubt Obama was devastated, but they are through to

the next round of the World Cup, unlike others I won't mention.

Joining us now from Florida is Rodney Mash, the former England

striker who left in the 1970s to ploy his trade there. And we have

Mark Fisher not so keen. You were there when football was virtually

discovered, and it is catching on now today? Today America was mental,

every television story news was about America, it has just got

bigger and bigger and bigger. It is, at the moment, at least, it is the

biggest thing in town. Mark, the biggest thing in down? I don't know

where Rodney is tonight, but I can say that it is certainly not the

biggest thing throughout the United States. I was talking to people in

Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, they had no idea this was going on. Do

you think you have seen over time actually people starting to see

soccer as being a more popular sport. More people watch the

Portugal match than the NBA final last week? That's right. But talking

about Kansas and Nebraska I don't think anybody cares what happens in

those states any way. As far as soccer in America is concerned, Mark

is completely wrong when he said that, I will tell you why. After the

England Portugal game, the New York Times first four pages of the sports

section, the first full four pages were all USA soccer. It is enormous

here now. Is it just the Washington Post that is missing out then?

Rodney is hitting it right on the head. The Washington Post is

covering the heck out of this as is the New York Times, this is very

much an elite play in the United States. This is the elite trying to

force down the throats of the Americans a game, it is the same

people who have been yappering on about the metric system for decades

and telling us for half a century that soccer was about to happen in

the United States. None of it is true, there is an elite people

interested and there is a cachet, and you see it in the New York

Times. Forestieri many it remains a dull, boring sport and doesn't hold

a candle to the sports we have. It is unclear why the rest of the world

wants the United States to become a soccer country, we have sports of

our own, every country should have. It is not a sleight against soccer

it is just not a sport for American Americans, it is not a sport that

fits in with our way of life. If you say football is dull and boring to

watch, if you go to an American football or baseball match it goes

on for hours. It is either freezing in the world in the winter or

sunburn in the summer, surely 90 minutes of fast-paced World Cup

action is a bit more interesting than that? Well, Americans tend to

watch sports on television and anyone would admit that soccer is

not a television sport, the field is too wide, it is very difficult to

see the players in any detail. You don't form a bond or identity with

the personalities on the field. And the ball is on television tiny, it

is very difficult to follow on television and it is continuous

action which violate a basic rule of American sport, we just have

frequent bathroom breaks and frequent breaks to get a cold one.

You have a good sense of humour and it may mean that your entire career

to get America to love soccer has failed? Let me make a comparison to

American sports and soccer, he just said that the pitch is too big, and

the field is too big and the ball is too small. Mark have you ever tried

to watch ice hockey on television. You can play for four hours and not

see the puck, the puck is this big you can't see it, it travels at 100

miles an hour and you can't see the puck, and you watch it for four

hours, are you kidding me. Do you think the World Cup is actually a

moment where Americans will take football to their hearts, genuinely,

or is it just the surprise that they have got through to the next round?

I have seen over the 25/30 years, since I have been here, the growth

of the sport. There are so many young kids playing. Millions and

millions of kids. The women's league is big, the women's national team is

fantastic, there is a lot of girls playing. There is a lot of kids

playing, it is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And God forbid,

listen to me, if the United States should wind the World Cup you will

go mad. We must leave it there I'm afraid. Just before we go, America

may have lost tonight, but they are going through, and fans will have

been cheered to find out about the arrival in Brazil of their team's

new secret weapon. Allegedly Will Ferrell introduced himself yesterday

at USA fan HQ I'm honoured to be playing tomorrow. I'm not going to

lie to you, I'm not in the best shape. If the game gets close I will

bite, I bite the opponent! I'm going to bite every player if I have to.

A chilly night across Scotland, a fresh start here. Elsewhere a warmer

night, not as cold in the morning, but a grey start for England Wales

and Northern Ireland. We are keeping our eye on clumps of heavy,

potentially thundery downpours developing particularly