Blogoir

Feuding as he already is with his lead FCO department, Craig Murray sits down to write a strong speech on Uzbekistan human rights issues.

He sends a draft to London, to FCO Human Rights Department led by his old pal (and mine) Jon Benjamin - himself something of a post-Sovietologist as he worked with me on the collapse of the Soviet Union back in 1991/92.

Craig's book does not say how much notice he gave London to look at the text. It causes a stir.

The day before the speech is due to be delivered, Eastern Department consult Sir Michael Jay, the FCO top official, saying that "we are fast developing a problem with Craig Murray" in part over his lax attitude to communications security; the speech is bound to make the Uzbeks very angry.

Sir M Jay replies. The text of his sensible views as they appear on Craig's website does not (not) show that Michael Jay was 'horrified' (as Craig absurdly asserts) that Craig was due to speak on human rights in Taskent.

A rapid negotiation ensues over the text. One of the reasonable London comments is available via Craig's site, even though his site says that it isn't(!).

Craig replies in strong terms, bemoaning (Cliche Alert) the classic public school and Oxbridge-influenced FCO house style as 'ponderous, self-important and ineffective'.

A text approved by London (with which Craig himself is delighted) appears just in time. The speech is duly delivered to a crowd attending the opening of a new American NGO office.

The speech has some immediate dramatic effect, as it goes to contradict or at least heavily qualify what the US Ambassador has just said, as it (according to Craig) challenged the whole carefully constructed US illusion about Uzbekistan. It is picked up by the international media.

Here is the text of the speech. It's not what I would have done - we all have our own styles - but it is sharp without being hysterical (and so in fact a good example of Post and London working together).

The next day at a banquet for the visiting UN Sec-Gen, the President of Uzbekistan ostentatiously shakes Craig's hand:

I could only surmise he was demonstrating publicly, or specifically to Kofi Annan, that he could take criticism.

Various other interpretations suggest themselves, of course.

Professional Judgement Rating: 5/10.  Good that Craig's energy and principles propelled him to make a substantial human rights speech early in his tour, probably pushing London in form and substance further than they might otherwise have gone. But this success is achieved at the expense of his new relationship with the US Ambassador and by bruising colleagues in London.

Has he thought through how best to make progress steadily over a three-year posting? Or is all this little more than manic improvisation?

Chapter 7 of Craig Murray's book describes his first serious skirmish with the FCO, over a speech he makes about human rights.

By the date of the speech he has been in Uzbekistan exactly 56 days. His nonetheless bold aim:

... to fracture what I believed had become a conspiracy of silence by the West on human rights in Uzbekistan and to outline a distinctive British position in favour of democracy and reform which made it plain that we did not simply follow the United States.

Hmm.

What 'conspiracy', and what silence? A distinctive British position? Or a distinctive Murray position? Not necessarily the same thing?

Already he is falling out with his 'lead' department in the FCO, Eastern Department. His description of them is ... let me choose my words carefully ... utterly ridiculous:

... stilted working practices of a previous century ... obsessed with the need to prevent the Uzbeks from knowing what we were thinking ... old Sovietologists remained steeped in the paranoid culture of the Cold War...

Why is this utterly ridiculous?

Three reasons.

First, the Department would not have been full of 'old Sovietologists'. Indeed if anything there are not enough of them around these days, hence our recent misjudgements over Putin/Kosovo/Georgia.

Second, as Craig himself puts it (p 37) the Uzbek regime left the USSR to keep the Soviet system, not to destroy it. So maybe some residual Cold War instincts back in London were going to come in handy?

Third, as Craig will have known the department had access to far more information than he had about Uzbek and ex-KGB type attempts to attack his Embassy's security. If he wanted to be taken seriously in London, he in turn had to respect their views in this area, even if it made life awkward at times.

Craig breezily tries to gloss over this point, telling them that:

I knew my emails were almost certainly being intercepted [by the Uzbeks] ... that was all to the good: it would save me the effort of telling them.

No.

Useful now and again, of course. I used the same technique in Sarajevo. But in principle a professionally trite and personally self-defeating approach, the more so if disagreements start to appear over Policy, when the Uzbeks will quickly grasp that Craig does not enjoy London's full authority.

Craig's plummet from FCO grace has quite a lot to do with communications problems of all sorts.

Basically (as I understand it), he did not have a Confidential email system. He did have an Unclassified FCO email system (which in Tashkent's circumstances could not have been regarded as secure) plus a separate more cumbersome system for sending Confidential and even higher rated Telegrams.

This was a real disadvantage to Craig (as it was to many other Embassies at that point, ie while the new CONF systems were being installled one by one round the globe). By then the FCO Main Building/Whitehall was operating primarily on CONF email, so he was 'out of the loop' for many normal purposes.

It all comes down to cost, of course. Installing a CONF email system in a tough place like Uzbekistan and then keeping it secure meant heavy new security measures and (probably) building works by UK contractors.

A pity that the book does not make all this clear - and tell us what (if anything) both sides did to address these real communication issues sensibly.

Professional Judgement Rating: 2/10.  Fatuous attitude right from the start of his posting evinced towards key colleagues in London, whom he needed to get on-side if he wanted to achieve anything during his tour. (NB Diplomacy starts with one's own colleagues). Plus flippant approach to security, potentially a serious problem. Commendable intention to stake out a firm public UK position on human rights - but needs to be careful not to get out on a limb in policy terms.

Next: that Craig Murray speech.

After a long break (exhaustion) we return to working our way through Craig Murray's Murder in Samarkand.

Chapters 5 and 6 give us a lively account of Craig's first major foray deep into Uzbekistan (the Ferghana Valley), complete with accompanying local KGB-style minders. He stays in dirty, basic hotels ("I felt that more respect should be shown to a British Ambassador") and drinks vodka with local officials. One hotel receptionist has studied in the UK under an official Uzbek scholarship programme, only to be allocated this lowly job on his return.

He also visits various factories and projects, including a major EBRD-supported wool factory which looks like a major corruption exercise (Note: unclear what if anything Craig subsequently did to raise his concerns on this score with Whitehall/EBRD).

He meets a human rights activist who tells him that there are nearly 400 Muslim dissidents/activists imprisoned from Ferghana city, many from HuT (Hizb-ut-Tehrir), an organisation wanting to establish a single Caliphate over all Muslim lands. As Craig describes them, HuT are "against violence but also against democracy and participation in politics", and (he argues) a growing force in Uzbekistan because the regime is so repressive and offers few genuine ways of letting different voices be heard. He offers to buy the activist a taxpayer-funded PC, apparently on the strength of this one first meeting.

My theory of diplomacy is that every hour a diplomat spends in an Embassy is time wasted. You are paid by the taxpayer to live in a foreign country, so get out there and see it, returning to the Embassy only to get your reports out.

So Craig does well here to make such an effort to have a good open-minded look round early in his posting, including by showing that he is ready to talk openly with people whom the regime must dislike.

Professional Judgement Rating: 8/10. Commendably thorough early 'hands-on' tour to regions rarely visited by Western officials. Good range of people and factories/enterprises included. Need to keep an eye on the late-night socialising (creates a strange impression if overdone) and on cross-checking the credentials of new possibilities for small-scale Embassy support. Risks of local human rights activists being persecuted for meeting him after Craig has left the area?

Craig Murray is having more problems getting his views published, this time on various important African issues.

He complains at great length that various concerns expressed by his lawyers and publishers about passages in his new book amount to 'censorship' and a massive suppression of free speech:

... under this country's crazy libel laws you cannot even retell things you did yourself unless you have other objective evidence that you did it. And you may not express opinions that are not mainstream, or which may upset the government or the rich and powerful.

I think the position in fact is that if Craig wants to publish his views and run a risk of a heavy libel suit, no-one is stopping him.

It's just that the publishers he has chosen have taken legal advice and (it seems) would prefer not to risk getting entangled in all that with the text as it stands.

Not obviously unreasonable. They are in business to make money, and the fun (and profit) of doing that with a new Craig Murray book may be diminished by a volley of expensive litigation.

If no other publisher is willing to take it on, Craig has the route of publishing and distributing a pamphlet to get his views out, as in the infamous Count Nikolai Tolstoy case.

Or there's the Internet. And some good ideas from people commenting on Craig's own site.

Lots of choices, in fact.

Some potentially more lucrative - but potentially more costly - than others.

Isn't having a wide and subtle range of choices a good part of what Freedom is all about, for writers - and publishers - alike?

Success.

This website has stormed from a standing start in January this year into the Total Politics Top 200 UK Top Political Blogs list, at position 161.

Not as good as, say, position 156.

But notably better than, say, position 166.

And rising fast next year, in hot pursuit of famous former Ambassador turned blogger Craig Murray who is at position 145, down from position 44 in 2007.

August has been much my best month so far, with some 9000 unique visitors.

Many thanks to all those who both like the product - and have taken the trouble to vote.

Jaded as you must be by my extensive offerings on the Kosovo/Georgia/Russia saga, you might care to look at the related (and vigorous) thoughts of three other former FCO Ambassadorial colleagues:

Sir Ivor Roberts:

How can the West talk of the need to maintain an independent state's territorial integrity and to refuse to countenance forcible changes of borders when that is exactly what the US and most of the EU countries condoned in recognising Kosovo -- against Serbia's will, and in the absence of any Security Council Resolution allowing it? To argue that Kosovo is unique is facile. Each potential secession is special, with its own often violent history ... Be careful what you wish for, says the old adage.

Brian Barder: 

It's too late to undo those Kosovo mistakes now, but it's not too late to begin to recognise them as mistakes and to try to learn some lessons from them in our future approach to Georgia (and Ukraine) in relation to Russia. 

And Craig Murray:

Agreed separations like the Czech and Slovak are no problem, but there is no fixed law for a region wishing to separate against the wishes of the state it is in. Quite simply it depends on having the political clout to get the UN to agree.

North Cyprus is a de facto state which never managed to pull this off, and seems a good parallel for the likely future of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Many "Western" states are deeply wary of acknowledging separatists for their own internal reasons - Canada and Spain being good examples.

The Chechen case is important, because it illustrates both Putin's extreme ruthlessness, and the fact that Russia has no principle on its side. Russia supports or opposes the rights of separatists purely as they benefit Putin's aims to expand Russian influence.

I agree with some of what they each say and disagree with plenty.

A reader on one of my posts writes:

Your article seems to be another in a series of lame attempts to minimize Russia's responsibility for her actions in GA with a critique of the West's Kosovo policies. Am I wrong on this?

This is a core point, and (I think) where I part company from my colleagues as above. What exactly are the policy and (as it were) psychological links between Kosovo and Georgia, if any?

That needs a new post to do the subject full justice.

To be continued after I have walked the dog...

More on the feisty Report by the HoC Public Affairs Select Committee report which came down heavily on FCO rules purporting to limit what diplomats might say after they leave the Service.

Craig Murray calls these regulations 'near-fascistic':

The idea, of course, is that only the ministers' version of truth will enter history. You can be confident that Jack Straw's memoirs will not tell you that he instructed Richard Dearlove that we would use intelligence from torture, or that we colluded with torture and extraordinary rendition in Uzbekistan and elsewhere. You needed my memoirs for that. If Jack Straw had his way, I would not have been able to publish my book telling you the truth; in fact the new regulations were born directly out of Straw's fury at Murder in Samarkand.

We now have a government so despised that it strives to protect itself further and further from scrutiny...

Let's be a tad more dispassionate.

Back to first principles.

The public want - and expect - to know in some detail what Government is up to with their money. 

The public also want Government to Just Get On With It, weighing complex interests and principles and taking hard decisions intelligently. 

As we are a free country, people should be able to comment on and/or write searching analyses of policy issues once they are out of public service, subject to some sort of reasonable cooling off period.  

That said, the public simultaneously like tittle-tattle and 'revelations', but also do not like seeing former officials trading in the public’s information to make a personal profit. 

These fickle public expectations are not invariably compatible with each other, or with real life. 

Foreign policy in particular requires a different quality of common sense confidentiality.

Domestic issues are in a way all 'ours' - disagreements and negotiations are within the British political family, all of whom claim that they want the best for the country.

Foreign affairs are different. Day in, day out HMG are involved in tough negotiations round the planet with people who may be our enemies, or who rightly want to do the best for their countries by exploiting British weaknesses/mistakes. It is madness to show our detailed analysis and negotiating hand to our rivals for ‘UK freedom of information’ reasons, when they of course will not reciprocate. 

At the very hard end of the spectrum are highly sensitive intelligence reports, sometimes gleaned from foreigners risking their lives to share information and insights with us (which NB does not mean that those reports are accurate/reliable).

The public know that the world can be a dirty place. They broadly trust the government to defend British interests by using such material wisely. This means keeping secrets secret, the public respecting limits on the public's 'right to know'. Lost lap-tops containing secret official material convey a sense of fathomless incompetence.

In return for ceding extra government discretion in this murky area, the public react badly to politicians whipping up public sentiment on the basis of inconclusive intelligence analysis, as happened in the run-up to the Iraq intervention. 

You know when you are seeing something Really Secret when its heading is a Greek letter or acronym you haven't seen before: TOP SECRET UK EYES A EPSILON/LOCKTIGHT or somesuch.

During my career I have seen all sorts of highly confidential analyses of controversial issues and countless Top Secret reports. I have written such papers myself.

Now I have left the FCO. Should I be free to use my privileged access to this fruity material to make money or stir up public anger, even if I happen to think the moral case is just?

In my view, no. Certainly not immediately I leave the Service, and for some purposes never.

The 'system' (and here I part company with Craig Murray) does offer all sorts of democratic best practice ways for officials to register substantive concerns, compatible with maintaining the secret methods needed to track foreign spies working against us, or managing threats posed by ruthless terrorist killers themselves armed with high-tech kit.

Have we got everything Perfect? No.

Room for improvement/tweaking? Probably.

Risky business for politicians and the public alike, one way or the other? Yes.

All that noted, if we agree that I am not to be 'allowed' to use my knowledge of highly sensitive processes/facts as I like immediately on leaving the FCO, how to give effect to that?

And if there are Rules or Principles, how to apply them? What threat should hang over me to deter me, a former British diplomat pecking away at my lonely keyboard, from overstepping the rules, in letter or spirit?

Legal proceedings against potential publishers?  Prison?

Threats to my pension? Ah now you're talking!

Finally, who in the end decides if a line has been overstepped, and what should happen next?

The Public Affairs Committee made a strong point in noting that in Freedom of Information Act disputes a separate outside mechanism has been set up to stop a Ministry being judge and jury where its own information is concerned. Something like that could be used to settle in a gentlemanly way rows over contested memoirs of the Jeremy Greenstock sort?

Ministers! The smart way to lean is towards generosity, creativity and flexibility. Do not appear vindictive/obsessive/defensive.

Few if any 'revelations' by former civil servants do drastic irreparable damage. We are in fact quite loyal for most purposes, most of the time.

Much worse political damage can be done by appearing to cover up and duck the hard questions than by taking some hits, heavy and unfair as they may be at the time.

And, above all Ministers, behave in an honourable, trustworthy and fair-minded way towards your officials and the public alike.

This gives you your best chance of winning their respect and so surviving the inevitable squalls of democratic public life in good shape, maybe even with a reputation enhanced.

Light touch, old boy, light touch – always the safest policy.

Welcome, Britblog Roundup readers.

The latest Roundup is here. It links to one of my Craig Murray Saga posts: "long-term mud-wrestle ... one to watch."

Lots of other interesting blogs there too.

Such as the Stroppybird - someone about as far from my own views as I can imagine. It does one good to step outside one's own little world now and then.

Craig Murray responds to my previous post:

Charles,

You brush very lightly over the fact that you praised in the warmest terms at the time the telegrams you now rubbish - as did numerous other Ambassadors including Jeremy Greenstock who commended the to his New York morning meeting.  I think that your new-found Damascean conversion to rubbihing me on behalf of the Establishment needs a little fuller explanation for your readers.

I think the most important single point here is one of honesty.  Our policy was based on accepting as true an official narrative of both economic and political reform which was simply impossible to square with the objective facts on the ground.  That theme recurred again and again throughout the book.  I don't think intellectual dishonesty is ever the basis for good policy.

I can respect though not agree with an argument from realpolitik that says "Karimov is very bad but we need him" as you posit.  But that wasn't the argument, as you well know.  The line being peddled by the US and supported in Whitehall was "Karimov's really not that bad a guy - look at all these reforms".  It was the intellectual dishonesty and cowardice of it that I found so frustrating.

I did not mean to brush over my email of congratulations to Craig on one of his early E-grams, nor do I think I did so. Plus see also this from an earlier post in April:

But I do recall dropping Craig an email of congratulations when he first started firing off some heavy reports to London pointing up the scale human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.

He made good sense in pointing to examples (eg the Taleban) where 'the West' had backed local extremists for short-term reasons, those extremists thereby flourishing and eventually taking on virulent anti-Western positions; it was (he argued) unwise to invest in the Uzbekistan regime for Iraq reasons, only to stoke up trouble for the future.

However, in subsequent FCO reports he banged on in a similar vein to and beyond the point of being persuasive or even credible. I dropped him another private email saying that while I did not follow the Uzbek/Iraq question in any detail, he came over as getting too shrill: maybe he should think about other more subtle ways of trying to win (or at least make a small policy gain or two in) this argument.

Nor am I 'rubbishing' him or his telegrams now.

Craig has made a lively new life after leaving the FCO trading heavily on his former Ambassadorial status and access to sensitive information and insights he acquired while on the public payroll.  Hence, and with the benefit of some hindsight now, fair questions.

What sort of example did/does Craig Murray set? What lessons does his complex case teach young diplomats starting their careers?

As an informed FCO insider, now ex-FCO outsider I have been analysing his own published account of his work as HMA Uzbekistan, looking methodically at the important policy and procedural issues it raised. This is as far as I know the first time this has been done in such detail.

I think - and I think I have been showing - that Craig's work in a senior civil service position overseas gives us a fertile if not unique combination of poor technique and judgement attached to high-octane personal commitment. With British public and political life in its current demoralised state, such an example is well worth a close look.

Craig's claim that I am have had a 'new-found Damascean conversion' to rubbishing him 'on behalf of the Establishment' is a good example of the Murray Law of the Excluded Middle:

• Crawford rubbishes me
• The Establishment rubbishes me
• Therefore Crawford is rubbishing me on behalf of the Establishment

Puny illogic, which as shall be demonstrated infects important parts of Craig's professional work and helps cause his downfall (or meteoric rise to glory/notoriety, depending on what one wants to call it).

And whereas I can be blamed for many things in my FCO career, being part of the Establishment is (as Craig knows) just not one of them.

Anyway, I'll be moving on to the substance of Craig's other points above as my analysis of the book unfolds.

If anyone is impatient for More in the meantime, have a look at another what Brian Barder - yet another former British Ambassador - had to say on all this back in 2006. Plenty of thoughtful points here and in the links.

Pressing on through Craig Murray's Murder in Samarkand, we reach Chapter 4 - Diplomacy.

Craig has to present his credentials to President Karimov to assume the full rights and responsibilities of HM Ambassador. These credentials traditionally are formal letters in flamboyantly old-fashioned courteous language language from HM The Queen to the Head of State concerned, recalling the previous Ambassador and introducing the new one.

A diplomatic curiosity. My Portuguese colleague in Belgrade was proud to display on his wall the top copy of his letter of credentials from the President of Portugal to to President Milosevic - Milosevic had fallen from power between the letter issuing and the ceremony to present it, so the Ambassador kept it!

Craig goes to the high profile ceremony armed (to his surprise - no explanation given for this surprise) with authority from the FCO to say some firm sentences on human rights. He describes well his encounter with President Karimov. 

Karimov is a Tough Egg, briefed to pretend to praise the UK on its long democratic traditions and lament the fact that Uzbekistan had fallen under Russian and not British imperial rule - a version of the usual rubbish line used by Bad Leaders to explain away the absence of basic democratic principles in their territory ("Pity poor us - struggling to catch up with you noble Brits, from so far behind!"). 

Karimov congratulates the UK on recent anti-terrorist legislation allowing suspects to be held without trial. Craig describes this as "a striking illustration of just how much encouragement New Labour's attack on civil rights in the UK gives to dictators round the globe". 

Hmm. Not sure they need any such encouragement - and in any case a fraction of the due process available to prisoners under these British laws would go a long way to improve things in somewhere like Uzbekistan.

Karimov responds to Craig's words on human rights with strong words of his own directed at Islamic militants and Russian influence - Uzbekistan had little choice but to respond in an authoritarian way. Craig admits that this speech makes an impression: "while he might be a thug, he was a complex and shrewd one with a profound grasp of detail."

Craig moves on to meet his EU colleagues.

The German Ambassador says that Uzbekistan offers only the illusion of progress. No mention here of Germany's military airbase and political support for Uzbekistan. But the Germans have offered numerous Uzbeks political asylum.

The French Ambassador warns against rocking the boat - the Americans have the major interest in Uzbekistan.

The Italian Ambassador's office is guarded by "three absolutely gorgeous young women ... white low-buttoned blouses exposing a terrific amount of cleavage, hip-hugging black short skirts with stockings and shiny black high heels".

The Italian Ambassador - with hotty support staff like that, why not? - looks like "someone playing God in an old Jimmy Stewart film"; he accuses the Americans of failing to grasp the complexity of a situation, either at the time or in retrospect.

Craig first encounters his US colleague at a lunch he hosts for a visiting IMF delegation. The US Ambassador (supported by the French Ambassador) inclines to give the Uzbekistan authorities the benefit of the doubt on their so-called economic reform programmes. Awkwardness occurs when Craig as the newcomer albeit with some experts' support argues that Uzbekistan statistics may not mean much, if anything:

The lunch established my reputation for being difficult and outspoken, while convincing me that the US were willing to bend any fact in defence of their ally, Karimov.

The next day Craig has a rather bruising private meeting with the US Ambassador, who does not welcome Craig's concerns about human rights abuses. He argues that Karimov is the best available Uzbekistan leader, grappling with real problems caused by Taliban-style militants: "Extreme Islam is itself a kind of institutionalised violence". He gives an example of one case where his personal intervention helped secure convictions of three policemen for murdering a detainee.

Craig then has something of a row with the Uzbekistan Minister for Economic Affairs, arguing over the facts (or otherwise) of Uzbekistan's reform programmes. He departs concluding (not unreasonably?) that the Minister had been talking 'complete rubbish'. 

After these first briefing rounds and being in post and in the region only some 27 days(!), Craig reaches two far-reaching policy conclusions.

That the USA had got its Central Asian policy thoroughly wrong. And that HMG in turn were wrong to follow the US line:

I knew that as Ambassador it was my duty to inform Jack Straw and Whitehall of my view. But I was also aware that it would be acutely unpopular ... saying what I wanted to say was likely to damage my career pretty severely...".

Craig then drafts a pair of telegrams advising in strong terms that HMG do not support more IMF money for Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan's performance does not merit it, whatever political deal might have been done by the Americans to secure use of Uzbek air facilities. Without real economic reform poverty would get worse, breeding more Islamic fundamentalism:

You do not encourage real reform by applauding fake reform. The poor of Uzbekistan should not become the victims of September 11.

A second telegram weighs even more heavily into the morality of US support for the Karimov regime with its totalitarian controls and use of torture:

If Karimov is on 'our' side, then this war [on terror] cannot be simply between the forces of good and evil. It must be about more complex things, like securing the long-term US military presence in Uzbekistan ... 11 September had also been the anniversary of the overthrow of the democratically elected President Allende of Chile ... we should have moved on from the disastrous policy of US-backed dictatorships.

Craig knows that he was going 'way out on a limb'. His junior colleague Christ Hurst wisely opines that this telegram was "pretty long for a resignation letter".

The telegrams issue. The text of a draft version of the first one is here. It is in fact rather better than Craig's excited description in the book suggests.

A letter appears from Craig's line manager in the FCO, Simon Butt. Craig is 'overfocused on human rights', plus discussing human rights cases on open phone lines likely to be monitored by the Uzbek security services. Craig's performance is causing concern...

So we get closer to the heart of the book.

What is happening here?

A not so senior Ambassador, after less than a month in a new post in a region he has not served in previously, pops up and tells HMG in telegrams circulated far and wide round Whitehall and the British diplomatic network that they have got things seriously Wrong.

I think Craig gets it Wrong.

First, as he must have known well, such a noisy and abrupt opening shot was going to annoy more senior people than it persuaded.

Note: Yes, I know that Craig received many positive emails for these first telegrams, including indeed one from me.

But work which is praised by people with little to lose and/or not working on the problem is not always the same as work which, even if couched in robust terms critical of the current line, is seen by key people at HQ as basically reasonable and constructive.

Second, Craig projects no sense at all of explaining how, given the awfulness of the Uzbekistan regime, he thinks we might make practical if probably painfully incremental progress in changing it, and what HMG might lose if we decide to try that path.

Third, denouncing the Americans' policy in such abusive terms while not explaining that eg our EU partner Germans too are doing their fair share of cosying up to Karimov is monochrome, even banal analysis. Plus it lacks operational credibility - if the Americans do have the main Western weight in Uzbekistan (and have just suffered 9/11) how to woo them in Washington and in Tashkent towards what we might see as a more 'balanced' policy? Is telling them that they're blundering oafs really the way most likely to get the results Craig wants?

Fourth, there seems to be nothing said about Russian ambitions - maybe in the Greater Scheme of Things it is just better that Western governments engage busily with Karimov, hoping slowly to turn that society in a more pluralist direction, than that reactionary post-Soviet instincts emanating from Moscow recover their strength.

Finally, the world does not give us a choice between Good and Bad options. Often there looks to be only a range of Pretty Bad options available, some with longer-term implications than others. Maybe using an oppressive regime in Uzbekistan to hit hard at an even worse regime in Afghanistan is, for now, the Least Bad Option, and so good hard-headed diplomatic business?

In short, Craig throws himself in a tabloidy, unprofessional, unconvincing  way at a hugely complicated international bundle of issues, asserting (in effect) that there is a simple way forward.

Not too surprising that those in the policy chain in London were irritated at Craig's implication that they too were a bunch of duffers missing all the obvious points, and that they quickly started to wonder what they were now dealing with?

Professional Judgement Rating: 2/10.  Makes numerous important points about the dire human rights situation in Uzbekistan, but shows no appreciation of how matters might be taken forward in a way likely to achieve better results on that front as well as on the many other key policy challenges HMG face in the region. Worrying tendency so early in a posting to get carried away with his own naive rhetoric, losing perspective.

Craig Murray has commented on my earlier post about EU policy towards Uzbekistan:

You make the somewhat childish debating error of asserting that because I have said that US republicans do something, I am claiming that only US republicans do that thing.  I have in fact published numerous pieces, both on my blog and elsewhere, attacking Germany's policy in Uzbekistan. Not sure if this link will show, but this one entitled "Uzbekistan and German Disgrace" is just one example: http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/05/uzbekistan_and.html

Well, childishly or unwisely or otherwise I was basing myself on p.37 of his book, which singles out 'conservative politicians in the USA' and 'short-sighted US Republicans' for confusing Uzbekistan leader Karimov with true democrats elsewhere in the former communist world.

Later on p.60 is a fullish description of the mighty 'K2' US airbase in Uzbekistan which is mentioned elsewhere in the book at different points. But it takes us until p.330 to discover that our benign EU partner Germans too have a significant military airbase in Uzbekistan.

And it takes us until p.378 tucked away in Note 73(!) to find out the name of "the most frequent and obsequious" Western Minister to visit Uzbekistan, namely "Joschka Fischer, the trendy Green German Foreign Minister". 

Craig likes to express his views in a blunt, provocative way. See eg his recent remarkable two-for-the-price-of-one sexist swipe on his website aimed at the Labour candidate who lost in the Glasgow East byelection:

... the graceless vituperation of the defeated New Labour candidate, the shrew-faced bitch Margaret Curran ...

It is fair to take his book about Western policy in Uzbekistan as his considered view on that subject. And that book hits far harder at US/UK perfidy than at eg German perfidy. Hence my childish simplification.

Maybe a book dwelling in greater length and in a balanced way on contradictions in EU as well as US policy towards Uzbekistan would have been more accurate, subtle - and persuasive? And for all those reasons less likely to sell?

Next. On to analyse Chapter Four of Craig's book, where he meets President Karimov and the German and US Ambassadors...

This story shows what is wrong with 'EU Foreign Policy'.

As previously posted, in dealing with difficult problems a thematic, sustained and firm approach can bring positive results. Especially if it is thematic, sustained and firm.

In this case the EU responds reasonably firmly to terrible killings by the Uzbekistan authorities in May 2005. But then is neither thematic or sustained.

Craig Murray would have us believe that it is 'short-sighted US Republicans' who turn the biggest blind eye to Uzbekistan abuses, because the USA has a huge airbase there.

Yet lo, it turns out that Germany has a goodly airbase there too, and in a generous gesture of humanitarianism issued a visa to the cancerous Uzbekistan Minister responsible for the massacre to help him be kept alive in a German hospital. Germany is said to be leading the push to drop EU measures.

Good news: US troops can use the German base now, the offending US base having been closed in 2005 after the short-sighted Republican Bush team spoke out against the Uzbeks' massacre.

So EU pressure on Uzbekistan looks to be dwindling a mere 170 weeks after the massacre, although various restrictions remain in place.

Why?

Basically because it is all Just Too Difficult.

The key argument in favour of an 'EU Foreign Policy' we hear in the UK is that it acts as a multiplier for British positions.

What tends not to be mentioned is that it acts as a multiplier for other EU Member States' positions too, not least when they disagree with us.

Result?

Junk Diplomacy. 

Responding to my earlier posting about Craig Murray flying the flag on his car before presenting his credentials, a reader helpfully points us to some detailed guidance on the issue: http://flagspot.net/flags/xf-dipl.html.

Thus:

The only still-relevant mention of flag usage by diplomats is Article 20 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. In it, it is affirmed that diplomatic missions and their heads, (ie., most often Ambassadors or High Commissioners), have the right to use their nation's flag and emblem on the premises of the diplomatic mission, (ie., the Chancery), as well as at the Head of Mission's official residence. It also affirms the Head of Mission's right to display his flag on his/her means of transport, (note: NOT just cars).

That's all there is as far as the letter-of-the-law is concerned. With regard to generally accepted practice, (i.e., unwritten conventions), the following may be asserted.

The Head of Mission's right to fly a flag on his/her means of transport, is generally inherited by the Acting Head of Mission, (ie., "Charge d'affaires"), in the former's absence, only when the Charge is making an official visit, (but the Head of Mission always flies the flag on his/her car, even when conducting unofficial -- indeed, even mundane -- business, such as shopping).

Fine. But until a new Ambassador has presented his/her credentials he/she in fact is not (yet) Head of Mission, and therefore not covered by this point?

Practice may vary from country to country. But Sweden is clear on one point:

Although this does not exactly cover the case when the new Ambassador is at unofficial functions, or indeed like Craig Murray driving to the Residence after first arriving in the country.

Does anyone out there have the right answer (a) in principle, and (b) for Uzbekistan if the practice there differs?

Back to Craig Murray's Murder in Samarkand - off with his family to Tashkent (Chapter 3).

Uzbekistan was one of the fifteen Soviet republics to become independent in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Craig offers a few paragraphs on the history of 'Uzbek independence', without saying anything about what makes Uzbeks a distinct community in that complicated part of the world. He has one excellent line about the ruling elite there:

... But they left the USSR in order to keep the Soviet system, not to destroy it.

Craig complains that "short-sighted US Republicans" have confused Uzbek leader Karimov with the pro-democracy heroes of Central Europe (Walesa, Havel). 

Cliche Alert (1): US Republicans = Bad.

Hmm. Short-sighted US Democrats made the same mistake.

Arriving in the middle of the night the Murray family are met by Embassy colleagues Karen Moran and her partner Chris Hurst. Karen is one of few women featuring in the book (another is Mrs Murray) without a vivid description.

The Murrays drive into Tashkent, proud to see the Ambassadorial flag flying on the Embassy car. A minor diplomatic solecism? Usually this is not appropriate until a new Ambassador has presented credentials.

The next day he explores for the first time the poorly laid-out Embassy offices and gives the staff an opening pep talk:

I wanted the embassy to make a positive difference to Uzbekistan ... to influence the policy of the government of Uzbekistan, the policy back in London and the policy of international institutions, in such a way that the lives of people in Uzbekistan would be discernibly better for our work.

This (to me) strikes an odd note. Is Craig's Main Effort as a British Ambassador to improve the lives of people in Uzbekistan, or the lives of people in the UK? Is not his job to implement London policy, not 'influence' it for the benefit of Uzbeks?

That aside, Craig gets off to what reads like a strong start, visiting local British businesses in their offices (not done by his predecessors) and resolving to do a lot more driving round the country to see for himself what is happening (Note: in principle a sound plan, but time-consuming and tiring - how will the small underpowered Embassy shop run itself during these prolonged absences?)

The Murrays are invited to Uzbekistan Independence Day celebrations, a sprawling noisy affair. They are told to be ready in their seats at 1730, but the show does not start until the President arrives at 1930.

Craig is 'livid' at being kept waiting. The next day he sends a formal diplomatic note to the Uzbekistan Foreign Ministry pointing out their 'gross discourtesy' in expecting Ambassadors to be seated some two hours before the event started. He copies this missive to all other Embassies in Tashkent:

This caused a sensation ... Diplomats in general being wimpish, none of my colleagues had ever raised a whimper before. For exhibiting the remotest trace of a backbone, I was viewed as fantastically daring and backslapped by the entire diplomatic community.

Cliche Alert (2): Wimpish diplomats.

Another oddity. In formal protocol/professional terms, putting in a Note of the sort Craig describes and copying it round the Diplomatic Corps is completely out of order when he has not yet presented his credentials.

You might say that the vile Uzbekistan regime do not merit much if anything by way of protocol niceties. And you might well be right.

Yet ... is this Wise?

Your job as Ambassador is not to win cheap points with your diplomatic colleagues, wimpish or otherwise. Your job is to advance British interests, which means (in a place like this) carefully taking stock and seeing how best to work the local system, odious as it might be, to the UK's overall advantage.

I would have done it differently, writing a personal letter to the Head of Uzbekistan Protocol (cc the Foreign Minister's and President's respective offices), expressing my private disappointment at the protocol arrangements at the fascinating and spectacular Independence Day events, and suggesting that improvements could be made which I was sure other Ambassadorial colleagues would value.

That sort of deft letter catches their attention at a high level, but does not cause too much open embarrassment/annoyance.

The problem with Craig's much more public, 'in their face' protest is that it achieves Impact, but perhaps at too high a cost.

The tough Uzbeks will be impressed by the fact that a new, forceful British Ambassador has hit town. But what conclusion will they draw?

That he needs to be taken seriously, as a sign that the Brits are changing their whole approach towards Uzbekistan? Or rather that he is a patronising, showy-off lightweight?

Professional Judgement Rating: 6/10.  Lively positive new engagement with UK business community and energetic 'new broom' sense with Embassy staff. But to get best results needs to watch his dealings with local officials (even when his concerns are justified) and not give the impression that he seeks the limelight at the expense of being effective.

Chapter two of Craig Murray's book describes his pre-posting briefing rounds.

He heads for Eastern Department, effectively his 'line management' people. He finds it hard work:

The atmosphere in the department seemed to be unpleasant - heavy, pompous and serious. A pall of misery appeared to have settled.

I have a soft spot for Eastern Department, as I was there when it received the name.

Back in the mists of time (to be precise 1640) our Foreign Policy organised itself to deal with different parts of the world in endearingly simple ways. One Department of of State was Northern Department, covering great swathes of the globe north of the equator. The other was Southern Department, covering points south.

Northern Department eventually became the Foreign Office but an FO department with that historic name continued to operate until well after the Second World War, when a reorganisation created 'Soviet Department'. Good riddance. Northern Department had dealt ingeniously with UK/Soviet policy in part by having various Marxists working in its ranks.

I was posted to Soviet Department as Deputy Head of Department in mid-1991 on returning from South Africa. I inherited a vast old 'partners desk' which had an electric switch by one's knee - once upon a time the occupant of the desk could switch on a red light to alert others in the room that he was on the telephone to the Soviet Embassy, hence they should stop talking lest Secrets be Revealed. Cool.

Anyway, after the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991 we had to rename the department. It could not be 'Russia Department' as too many other countries were to be covered by it. Restoring the name Northern Department might provoke, hem, adverse media comment.

So Eastern Department it was, and is. I hope that that desk is still there.

Craig describes his various conversations there with two FCO colleagues whom I happen to know, mainly on Tashkent Embassy resources/management issues. Craig notes that he inherits a small and mainly junior UK-based team: only four FCO officers plus a Defence Attache.

There is a hint of a Problem with one of the FCO team. Craig (reasonably) expresses concern at the absence of a more senior political officer, but is more than confident that he will cope:

I was professionally very capable myself of a high volume of wide-ranging output.

Thereafter Craig meets some senior business people from British firms investing in Uzbekistan, feasts on yummy Uzbek plov with the Uzbek Ambassador in London, and has a pre-posting audience with Princess Anne and Prince Andrew (Note: trite moan about having to wear 'fancy dress' for the occasion).

Craig's final pre-posting calls are on FCO Minister Mike O'Brien ("all haircut and presentation") and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who says:

"Whenever you get to ... wherever it is you're going ... tell them I'm thinking about them."

That was the extent of my instructions.

Putting to one side Craig's attempt (not it must be said totally unsuccessful) to portray his London interlocutors as largely uninterested in Uzbekistan, I find his account of these calls a bit strange.

Pre-posting Ambassadors are expected to work up their own pre-posting briefing round lists. Craig also had plenty of time in the margins of his months of Russian language training to see people.

So where are the calls on eg the FCO Human Rights and EU teams, HM Treasury, DTI, SIS, MOD, Cabinet Office, No 10 and so on? What about British human rights groups concerned about Uzbekistan? Uzbek dissident groups in London? Leading journalists and academics who cover the region? Did he pursue with FCO personnel people the question of the apparent poor performance of one of his future team?

Maybe he met some or all of these people and decided not to mention it in the book.

One way or the other, a key part of a new Ambassador's role is to ascertain 'what is out there' in the UK in respect of the country and issues with which s/he will be dealing, and to spot potential allies and friends.

No evidence is presented by Craig that he did this. The impression he gives us is of meeting only a few cynical busy people who treat Uzbekistan as a far away country of which they know little, and care even less. Their problem, not his!

So to say dismissively that Jack Straw's off-hand remark was "the extent of his instructions" is disobliging, if not untrue.

His detailed 'instructions' would have come from his many meetings round Whitehall.

If he had them.

Professional Judgement Rating: 5/10. Useful and blunt (if a touch dismissive) account as far as it goes of various significant briefing meetings, but no evidence presented that he did a full and comprehensive networking job.

My earlier posting on Craig Murray's telegram to the FCO recording serious human rights abuses in Uzbekistan dismissed the response he won from HQ, namely that the UK would press for an 'EU demarche'.

Why? It sounds grand and important.

Not an easy question to answer simply.

What is a 'demarche'? In this context a formal representation of protest/concern agreed and issued by the EU member states as a whole, and delivered on behalf of the EU to a host government by a small group of Ambassadors.

Who they are depends on who is around. Thus it might be that the country representing the EU Presidency has no bilateral Embassy in the country in question, so another Ambassador will be representing the Presidency locally and take the lead. S/he might be accompanied by the Ambassador representing the country taking over the forthcoming Presidency and eg an official from the Commission.

I never liked being part of these 'group' demarches and (bad boy) turned a Nelsonian Blind Eye to any instructions to do so. It always struck me as arrogant and patronising - and therefore likely to be less effective - that a group of Ambassadors appear to gang up on a host governmentto to deliver a formal protest.  Much better to attack the target in coordinated parallel bilateral sessions, with each Embassy delivering the message in the way most calculated to have Impact.

Plus, to be frank, I never liked airing my dark diplomatic arts in front of other non-British colleagues. What if during the meeting a private hint emerged of a way of moving forward which needed some frank discussion? Harder to do that in an EU group without straying from 'instructions' or risking exposing EU divisions and risking a silly row. 

EU demarches are therefore true 'lowest common denominator' diplomacy.

In this case the UK probably will have put round a telegram called a COREU to all EU member states' Foreign Ministries summarising the Murray report, and proposing the text of a demarche.

There then may well have followed a painful round of Euro-teeth-sucking and drafting quibbling, of the form:

"The Foreign Ministry of Moronia thanks the UK for its draft Demarche on this undoubtedly important subject, but wonders whether more investigation of the case in question is needed before the European Union commits itself to the proposed course of action...Given the lack of clarity about the facts of this one case, perhaps the language in paragraph 6(b) needs to be rather less direct? May we propose instead ..." 

Because consensus is needed, the draft in successive rounds of wittering tends to get diluted to suit the weediest concerns.

And, of course, if by any chance the foreign Minister of Moronia is meeting the Uzbekistan Minister in the coming weeks, Moronia may well not choose to open a row beforehand by sending in its Ambassador for a demarche of this sort.

Bottom Line: slow, bad outcomes. No real impact expected.

As Craig reports later in the book, the French Ambassador delivered the eventual demarche accompanied by Craig and two other EU colleagues "in a tour de force of Gallic insouciance", giving every impression that the exercise was purely formal and of little substance. When Craig then pointed out that in Uzbekistan 99% of trials ended in conviction and so were probably not fair, the Uzbek Foreign Minister smirked "Under our system only the guilty are accused."

In other words, this way of doing diplomatic business did not strengthen the weight of the protest, as the EU liked to think. It obviously diminished it.

What's more, the process of lurching the EU machine into movement for hollow exercises of this nature is time-consuming and distracting.

Which, worst of all, creates in the FCO official mind a sort of pre-emptive dumbed-down British punch-pulling - "if we can not get the support of EU partners without a lot of hard work or at all, why bother?"

Is there any better way to proceed?

Alas not obviously in this case. The Uzbeks were too far away, too obnoxious and too impervious to normal diplomatic pressure. Engaging our efforts with the Americans rather than the EU might have been better. But as we shall see, Craig quickly fell out with the US Ambassador and whatever chances there might of been of using that approach dwindled away.

Why not press for a personal letter to be sent from our Foreign Minister to his.her Uzbek oppo, to express in frank terms strong British dismay at this example of Uzbek injustice?

But here too one is Nutted by Reality. A private letter makes more impact on the target Minister, but because it is private it is easier to ignore. Publishing the letter turns up the public rhetorical pressure but allows the target and local media to dismiss the whole protest as tired/toothless/'arrogant' British post-imperial nagging.

And in the Uzbek system the Foreign Minister is probably a suave front-man with no power anyway. Even if he too is revolted by the Uzbek courts, what in practice can he do? Does he want to risk his nice job and perks for the sake of someone he has never met and who he suspects (rightly) of wanting to bring about radical changes including the ejection from office and possible trial of himself?

Er ... no.

When all the diplomatic flim-flam is stripped away, it all boils down to some very fundamental propositions:

• Can we persuade them to behave better on Human Rights merits?
• If not, can we plus/minus others create a different cost/benefit calculation for them to mull over - either more Gain or more Pain, or combination thereof?
• And is the effort required to make a difference in Hell-Hole (A) really worth it? Better to throw our available Human Rights time and energy at places such as Hell-Holes (B) and (C) which for one reason or the other currently look more receptive and where we have more levers to pull?

Tough, huh?

Welcome to Diplomacy.

Crawford v Murray (if that is what it is) has reached the Evening Standard's Londoner's Diary (alas not available on their website):

Mandarin puts knife into FO’s loose cannon

UNCIVIL war has broken out at the Foreign Office. Charles Crawford, the retired former ambassador to Warsaw, has broken ranks to express publicly for the first time what the FO really thinks of its errant ex-ambassador in Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, and his memoirs, Murder In Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of the War on Terror.

Most significantly Crawford, whose acerbic memos had a cult following in the FCO, contests the theory that Mur­ray’s career was a “brilliant” one, des­tined for great things before being derailed by his removal from the post for accusing the government in Tashkent of human rights abuses...

... A contemporary of Tony Blair’s at St John’s Oxford, Crawford is no stranger to stirring up a hornet’s nest — in 2005 one of his “blackly humorous” personal emails was leaked to The Sunday Times, revealing how much he hated EU budget negotiations and suggesting they would be better conducted by Mr Blair placing a large alarm clock on the table with a deal to be done by the time the bell rung.

While many in the FCO privately agree that Murray has “gone native” and lacks judgment they will be sur­prised by the vehemence of Crawford’s remarks. He is the most senior manda­rin so far to speak out so strongly against a former colleague who was highlighting human rights abuses ...

Droll headline. 

Just to point out that as neither CC nor CM are actually employed by the FCO any longer, it is a bit odd to say that "an uncivil war has broken out at the Foreign Office".

Nor have I in any way purported to proclaim that what I write is "what the FO really thinks" about Craig Murray and his story.

Insofar as the FO really thinks about this matter, I imagine views are mixed.

Some people may have approved of Craig's vehement opposition to the War on Terror and liked his defiant stand, even if it ended in a mess.

Others may have approved of Craig's vehement opposition to the War on Terror but thought his way of selling it was in purely professional terms unwise/bad and/or counter-productive.

Others may have disapproved of Craig's War on Terror views and thought his way of selling them was bad.

Others may not have cared one way or the other on the policy level, but been happy or unhappy about the way the business was handled in personnel terms.

The Ministers involved at the time maybe viewed the whole business differently from their officials.

And so on.

What I plan to do is to carry on looking at the book in detail on my website, since it gives a probably uniquely rich seam of 'raw honesty' illuminated by vivid examples of policy and operational dilemmas for the British diplomats involved, at home and at Post alike.

Thus the book raises convincingly many serious questions for practitioners and the public. It deserves what it has not had so far (I think), namely a critical practitioner's analysis of it.

So, on we go tomorrow.

Moving on to the substance of Craig Murray's book.

Chapter One opens with a description of Craig leaving the Embassy in Samarkand (seemingly early in his posting) to attend a dissident trial.

...out I went, still feeling pretty uncomfortable at people calling me 'Sir'...

Part of Craig's self-presentation lies in in portraying himself as Mr Unconventional Unstuffy Ambassador, eschewing boring old protocol in favour of Action. This sits uneasily with other passages in the book where he expresses indignation at the poor treatment handed out to him as Ambassador by the Uzbeks:

... I had accepted an invitation to a dinner to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state tractor factory. (Note: they know how to throw a party in Uzkebistan) All the Ambassadors were invited but I was the only own to turn up apart from the Belgian Honorary Consul. We were completely ignored and left to find our own place at the bottom of the table. I learnt that the rudeness shown to diplomats at Independence Day was typical...

Invited to a concert at Tashkent Conservatoire:

I was the only Ambassador to turn up. There was nothing prepared for me, and I was left to find a place in a concert hall that was overfull.

Had Craig's office telephoned to confirm and nail down satisfactory protocol arrangements? What I would have asked to be done, if only because then one is on firmer grounds to complain afterwards if there is a mess.

Craig meets relatives of some of the unlucky people on trial, including the beautiful Dilobar:

Her brother was going to be executed and I was trying to make out her legs through her dress. I was filled with self-loathing.

Not for long:

My momentary self-hatred turned to real anger against a system that promotes torture and execution, as well as against fellow diplomats for their complacent acquiescence.

After having 'snapped' against a paramilitary who held him back, grabbing him by the throat(!?) and raging "Don't you touch me!", Craig enters the shabby courtroom.

A superb description by Craig of the seedy, immoral farce which ensues, operating under the communist principle that 'the prisoner in the dock has to be guilty, otherwise why would he be in the dock?'

The nasty judge makes no pretence at honesty and justice, summarily and obnoxiously dismissing all defence witness points including claims of torture. Very bad.

Craig leaves, rightly (seems to me) shaken by this experience. He resolves:

... to dedicate every fibre of my being to stopping this horror in Uzbekistan ... I would not go along with lies or leave the truth unspoken ... If these were our allies in the War on Terror, we were not on the clear moral ground which Blair and Bush (sic) claimed so boastfully.

The grim episode is reported to London, with the result that it is agreed that the UK call for an EU demarche by way of formal protest.

Craig does not comment on this useless outcome. If anything is less likely to make an impact in a place like Uzbekistan it is an EU demarche. Why did he and the Human Rights team in London go for this banal approach?

Was there really nothing else in our diplomatic armoury which might have had a sharper, deeper impact? A Ministerial letter? Instructions to weigh in with the Uzbeks at a high level? Balance of taking action privately as opposed to publicly? How to engage the Americans? Consideration by Craig on how best to Make an Impact, both immediately and over the time of his posting?

Not explained, one way or the other. A pity.

Craig does fairly analyse the difficulty even with plausible sounding dissidents of getting to the bottom of what was going on and why. There were rebel groups of different varieties out there working hard and maybe even violently against the Uzbek regime. Maybe some of those on trial had been involved in illegal activities, even if their trials were manifestly unjust? Not easy for diplomats to decide how best to proceed. Well put.

The chapter ends with Craig seeing unspeakable photgraphs of a dead Islamic dissident - subsequent analysis indicates that he had been killed by immersion in boiling water after earlier torture.

Professional Judgement Rating: 8/10. Powerful and unprecedented first-hand senior intervention at one of these trials in Uzbekistan, reported speedily to London. Not clear why the London/Post operational outcome looks so weak. Signs of excessive and inappropriate confrontation/frustration with the locals, plus an intemperate attitude to colleagues: diplomats who disagree with him are not necessarily 'complacent'.

Craig cheerfully writes:

But at some stage you have to face the real question.  Nobody now doubts the CIA's use of torture, by proxy as in Uzbekistan or even direct.  And as you know very well, the UK government gets the CIA reports which are a result of torture.  There is an argument - advanced by many around Bush - that torture is justifiable in the War on Terror.  I did not invent what I was complaining about in Uzbekistan, and there are issues here other than the beauty of my secretary ... 

By the time you finish making fun of the more amusing bits of the book, I hope you'll have faced some of the deeper questions. 

I have replied that indeed I will do that. Debate is joined.

I proceed for now by taking the book as Craig wrote it. So, having dealt with the cover I move to the Preface.

Craig begins the book by saying that to the best of his knowledge and memory it is a true story, albeit told largely from memory:

But most importantly it is the truth as I perceived it ... Different people can thus experience the same events and have a different take on what happened. I am not saying that mine is uniquely correct. This is what seemed (sic) to me to be happening, and how it felt to be me, experiencing it.

As a fellow ex-FCO professional I do not like that passage. It comes across as somehow equivocal, maybe even a bit shifty.

Is there a sense here that Craig knows that his own actions and attitudes are open to severe criticism, and that the best way to head that off is to steer the book away from Facts and Judgements towards a much more slippery territory of Experience and Feelings?

Let me digress.

Promotion in the FCO as in much of the real world turns these days on 'competences' - those qualities the organisation in question looks for in its people at each level and especially the higher levels.

In the FCO as elsewhere Competences change according to fashion and latest management theory. Thus in my own very final appraisal of 2007/08 I was assessed on:

• Leadership
• Getting the best from staff
• Delivering results
• Strategic thinking
• Personal impact
• Learning and development 

There used (as recently as 2002) to be a longer and better list covering such issues as Adaptability and Creativity, Communication (Written and Oral), Relating to Others and above all Analysis and Judgement.

And the greatest of these is Analysis and Judgement. (Memo to next government: bring that back on Day One.)

Why?

Because in foreign policy things are complicated. Long-term v short-term. Big v Small. Certainty v uncertainty. Principle v Politics v Practical v Possible.

Thus in a democracy what Ministers need is a team of skilled people able to help them steer through these operational and philosophical complexities for a few years.

People who simplify complexity but in a subtle, nuanced way. Who are good at bringing people of rival opinions together and explaining convincingly what might best be done. People who can juggle numerous balls but keep their eye on the Big Picture. People of unerring accuracy.

And 'Judgement' is the word for all that. Without Judgement a civil servant (like a Minister) is fairly useless.

So what? The point - a serious one - is this.

Judgement is not about looking at the world from the point of view of one's feelings and 'experiences'. It is the exact opposite of that.

It is about keeping one's feelings/experiences in the picture but not letting them detract unduly from a hard-headed or even ruthless objective focus on the wider issues.

See eg this well-known example of Structural Judgement Failure in this sense.

So in presenting his whole book as essentially 'the truth as he perceives it' Craig turns his back on the World of Judgement and wanders off somewhere else. As we shall see, that question of Judgement (and Lack Of) is at the heart of the whole story.

Moving on.

Craig says that he never expected to have to confront extreme moral dilemmas of the sort he had debated at school.

But my brilliant career, resulting in my appointment as Ambassador at the age of 43, ended with me writing in an official telegram to Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary: 'I will not attempt to hide ... my shame that I work in an organisation where colleagues would resort to [casuistry] to justify torture.'

Reading that for the first time I thought that Craig was being ironic in describing his career as 'brilliant'. But on second thoughts I think he meant it!

What is a brilliant FCO career?

Not Craig's. Nor indeed mine.

A brilliant FCO career is one involving not merely serious jobs but also jobs at the heart of the policy machine as a whole. Thus it is almost impossible to get to the Very Top without one or more Private Secretary positions in the FCO or No 10. It is those jobs which give you both a vast range of operational insight plus knowledge of how Ministers and Parliament work - the very heart of our democracy.

Craig (like me) had none of those jobs. Nor did he work in eg the FCO Planners, another 'core' job. Nor did he work in a single Big Embassy.

It took him thirteen years to move from Second Secretary to Deputy Head of Department. It took me rather less, eleven years, and I did it younger. The brilliant ones would have done it notably faster