No blood on my hands says Brown

GORDON Brown emphatically denied having blood on his hands by failing to fund adequately British troops in Iraq when he was Chancellor – but insisted it was the "right decision" to go to war.

The Prime Minister told the Iraq Inquiry he was "very sad" that dozens of British troops died during the conflict and said he regretted failures to plan properly for the aftermath of the conflict.

But he said he agreed to fund armoured vehicles as soon as the Ministry of Defence asked for the money to replace controversial Snatch Land Rovers, and said he made clear to Tony Blair that there should be no "financial restraint" on military needs.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

His four-hour appearance did little to satisfy Tories last night who accused Mr Brown of failing to take responsibility for his role in the conflict and the families of dead servicemen who accused him of evading questions.

Mr Brown was initially due to appear after the general election, but he volunteered to move it forward after the Liberal Democrats and Tories demanded he appear before polling day.

In contract to Mr Blair, who last month told the Inquiry he had "no regrets", Mr Brown struck a more conciliatory tone saying: "Any loss of life is something that makes us very sad indeed.

"Nobody wants to go to war, nobody wants to see innocent people die, nobody wants to see their forces put at risk of their lives.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"Nobody would want to make this decision except in the gravest of circumstances where we were sure that we were doing the right thing. I think it was the right decision and made for the right reasons."

Mr Brown acknowledged that there were "important lessons" to be learned from the way the country descended into chaos following the invasion, and said it was "one of my regrets" that he could not do more to push the Americans on preparing for reconstruction .

But he strongly defended himself against accusations he had failed to provide the necessary funding for the conflict, most recently yesterday morning by former chief of the defence staff General Lord Guthrie.

"I said immediately to the Prime Minister that the military options that were under discussion, there should be no sense that there was a financial restraint that prevented us doing what was best for the military," said Mr Brown.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He said he understood the concerns of the bereaved families of soldiers killed travelling in lightly armoured Snatch Land Rovers and added they deserved the "fullest explanation possible" about what happened.

But he stressed it was for commanders on the ground, not him, to decide which vehicles to use, telling the inquiry: "Every request that the military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down.

"And I would add to that, so long as I have been Prime Minister, I have always asked the military at the point at which they are undertaking any new operation, can they assure me that they have the equipment that they need for the task that they are undertaking.

"And at every point the answer to the question is, 'for the operation we are undertaking, we have the equipment and we have the resources that are necessary'."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Prime Minister said he provided money for more heavily armoured vehicles, including the Mastiff and the Bulldog, "within months" of being asked.

He strongly defended his decision to curb defence spending following the invasion in 2003, claiming the Ministry of Defence had used new Whitehall accounting rules to claim it had achieved efficiency savings of 1.3bn which it had intended to spend on new equipment despite there being no proof the savings had been achieved.

Former MoD permanent secretary Sir Kevin Tebbit previously told the inquiry that, after Mr Brown instituted his "guillotine", he had been forced to run the department on a "crisis budget".

But Mr Brown insisted that the MoD had still been left with more money than it had been allocated in the 2002 Government Spending Review.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Despite striking a different tone to Mr Blair, the Prime Minister defended his predecessor's conduct saying he had acted "properly" over Iraq.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said Mr Brown had "come clean" over his support for the war, but Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox said "something does not add up" because of contradictions between evidence from Mr Brown and other witnesses.

Comment: Page 14.