Iraq war was right decision - Brown

A protest by the Stop the War Coalition outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre
12 April 2012

Gordon Brown has expressed his sorrow for the loss of life in the conflict in Iraq while insisting it had been the "right decision" to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

In his long-awaited appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry, the Prime Minister said the Iraqi dictator had to be confronted as a "serial violator" of international law.

While he expressed "regrets" over the failure to plan properly for the aftermath of the invasion, he strongly rejected claims that, as chancellor of the exchequer, he had failed to provide the armed forces with the resources they needed.

"Every request that military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down," he said.

But although Mr Brown backed Tony Blair's decision to go to war, he took a noticeably more conciliatory tone than his predecessor who insisted he had no regrets when he appeared before the inquiry in January.

Mr Brown began and ended his four hours of testimony by paying tribute to the 179 British servicemen and women who lost their lives in the conflict, while acknowledging the "huge" death toll among Iraqi civilians.

Although Britain and the United States had acted for the "right reasons" he said, it is important lessons are learned. "Obviously the loss of life is something that makes us all sad. We have got to recognise that war may be necessary, but it is also tragic in the effect it has on people's lives," he said.

Mr Brown said he had been kept "fully informed" about developments in the build-up to the invasion in March 2003 but at the same time he made clear that he was not central to the decision-making process. He admitted that more should have been done to plan for the aftermath of the invasion and he criticised the US "neo-cons" who thought they could simply "conjure up" democracy in Iraq.

"It was one of my regrets that I wasn't able to be more successful in pushing the Americans on this issue - that the planning for reconstruction was essential, just the same as planning for the war," he said. "I never subscribed to what you might call the neo-conservative proposition that somehow, at the barrel of a gun, overnight liberty or democracy could be conjured up."

But he added: "I cannot take personal responsibility for everything that went wrong."

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