The blame game!

It was perhaps to the Chilcot Committee's disadvantage that they chose now to invite Gordon Brown to appear before them. In the last few months he has become a reinvigorated man, displaying much of the confidence that seemed to leave him, as he became beset by a number of problems following his appointment as Prime Minister.

He had two main themes with which he countered the questions put to him. Firstly that the United Kingdom was right, along with the United States to take action against Iraq. Secondly that at no time were British forces denied the equipment they requested.

During the period from March 2003 until July 2007 Mr Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position he had held since 1997. Therefore he was right at the centre of events leading up to the invasion, and in charge of the money to fund it, and the aftermath.

The first half of the Prime Minister's evidence was taken up with the decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. The Committee here seemed to have been influenced by the evidence given by Clare Short, the former Secretary of State for International Development, on 2nd February 2010. She had stated that the then prime Minister, Tony Blair, had kept the discussions to a very small group, and that Gordon Brown had been largely excluded.

Whether you agree with the line that Gordon Brown took at the Inquiry, or not, he did not try to duck out of his role of responsibility as a member of the Cabinet. Clare Short had tried to give him a get out, by saying he wasn't closely involved, but he agreed that he was, "adequately briefed, adequately informed, adequately aware of all the different aspects of this question in order to share in the collective responsibility for the decision?" When questioned by Sir Roderic. This was very much in agreement instead, with what Alistair Campbell had said when giving his evidence.

As could be expected, Mr Brown was asked whether he believed that Iraq had the weapons of mass destruction that the Americans were insisting they had. He commented that it 'was known to many countries, not just our country, about the weaponry that the Iraqi Government held, and, of course, at that time there was a greater certainty amongst the intelligence community that this weaponry was there." This, as we know turned out to be untrue, there weren't any weapons in Iraq, and baroness Prashar did not follow up by asking how he felt afterwards when this became evident.

Mr Brown was very skilful in bringing the discussion back to how Iraq was not seeming to comply with UN resolutions. This was despite repeated questioning from Sir Roderic Lyne, asking if there was an imminent threat from the Iraqi military. This was a legitimate line to take, as the original reason given for the invasion, was to prevent Iraq having access to weapons of mass destruction.

Gordon brown did, however, refuse to accept Lyne's line that Tony Blair had given an assurance to President Bush that the United Kingdom would be there if, when, military action was taken. Mr Brown's assertion was that Britain was preparing for military action if required, but was still resolutely pursuing a diplomatic solution. He did maintain that he had not seen the letters between George Bush and Tony Blair, so implying that he would not know about any assurances. But on the issue of international cooperation he was very clear.

"I am afraid this became a test of whether the international community was prepared to deal with problems in a post-Cold War world where instabilities were becoming more and more apparent." The Prime Minister seems have accepted the Bush regime's, 'You're either with us or against us,' mantra in its entirety. The blame here is being shifted onto the United Nations, or more specifically member states, and Tony Blair's insistence that the French had said they would not agree to military action under any circumstances.

This was a very clever ploy by Mr Brown, as he very carefully linked together international co-operation with the decision to invade Iraq. It became, to him, a sign that only by going along with this, are other states showing commitment to the ideals of international co-operation, and would enable them to work more closely in the future to solve problems.

However, would it not be truer to say, that this dissent is not a sign of weakness, but one of strength? The United Nations is not an arm of American, or British diplomacy, but a way for members of the international community to try and sort out issues peacefully. Indeed, the Americans certainly under George W Bush, had such an antipathy towards the UN, that they surely should not have been surprised when they weren't willing to just go along with what the US wanted.

Gordon Brown continued to insist that for him, " (T)he major issue was that a breach of the international community's laws and decisions was something that was unacceptable." This he seems to have considered of greater importance than the threat of WMD. However, if he truly believed this, he would have pressed much more for the diplomatic route, and followed Robin Cook (the sadly missing voice of this whole inquiry). Military action should only have been a last resort, and because, even if WMD had existed, there was no imminent threat, was unjustified.

When questioned regarding the legality of taking action, Mr Brown seemed to indicate that he had been aware that the Attorney General had expressed doubts, but had had no direct knowledge. However, he was at the Cabinet meeting where Goldsmith had shared his view, and said that he 'was unequivocal.' But Mr Brown had said that there were also moral and political considerations to take into account. Once again the Committee failed to follow up this line of enquiry, as surely it would have given a fuller picture of how the Prime Minister came to reach his decision to support the invasion.

Sir Roderic Lyne has been by far the most effective member of the Chilcot Committee when it comes to cross examining the witnesses. He often seems the only one to have read all the evidence, and have a genuinely sceptical view regarding the whole enterprise. Therefore his question, "Do you think that this Cabinet, in which only two members were fully in the picture... was able to take a genuinely collective decision, or was it being asked essentially to endorse an approach that had been taken by your predecessor at a time when the die effectively was already cast?" Should have been a real killer!

Unfortunately, Mr Brown avoided answering this question directly, a skill learned from three years of Prime Minister's questions, repeated that he believed the right decision was taken, and then turned it onto the lessons that had been learned for the future. This is where Sir Roderic let himself, and us down, in that he allowed the Gordon Brown to get away with this, instead of pressing him on this aspect of collective responsibility. There has been evidence from previous witnesses that indicates the Blair form of government was a series of closed meetings, and that the information was distributed on a strict 'need to know ' basis.

Mr Brown seemed to get a bit angsty when challenged that Britain was in reality going along with an American deadline, insisting that the decision that had been taken in the House of Commons the previous November needed to be followed up. As a military decision this is probably correct, but his attitude seemed to suggest unhappiness with the line of questioning. This, however, is really at the route of the whole Iraq issue. To what extent was the United Kingdom just following the diktats of the Bush administration, in the belief that this was essential to 'the special relationship?'

He puts the blame for the failure to plan adequately for post-conflict reconstruction on the shoulders of the Americans. But Britain too had been fully involved in the decision to invade, and therefore, we had a collective responsibility to plan for this eventuality.

Saying seven years later, "(W)e now know that you cannot win the peace simply by military action, you need to engage the people of Iraq, or any other country, you need to give them the chance of political empowerment at some stage... you need economic development. People have got to have a stake in the future." Is not good enough!

Long experience should have taught the British establishment that wars do not leave ploughed fields and happy people in their wake. They leave death, destruction and poverty! These things should have been properly thought out. We knew the Iraqi forces would be no match for us, and large degree of scepticism as to how the Iraqi people would feel would have been sensible.

I was pleased to hear Mr Brown bring the issue of post-conflict (I think calling it a war gives the impression the Iraqis were in a position to put up a fight) reconstruction, and indeed send a paper to the Americans. But, he doesn't seem to have pressed his case, and perhaps if he had followed Clare Short out of the Cabinet on this issue, then his position would have been an incredibly powerful one. perhaps, even his ambition of becoming Prime Minister much earlier might have been achievable.

I accept that Britain did a lot of work in the immediate aftermath to try and help Iraq begin to rebuild. But the initial lack of a real plan, and because of the lack of international support, meant everything was happening far later than it should have. Mr Brown spoke eloquently about how the international community needed to work together much more closely, but as Sir Roderic said, "(P)resumably, it will only be able to operate in areas where there is an international consensus in favour of the action, which obviously wasn't." The UN did become involved in the reconstruction process, but that was out of its obligations to the Iraqi people, and not to boost American or British occupation.

Mr Brown, who as Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the invasion, had overall responsibility for the financial implications. The most controversial of these has been the supply of equipment for our forces, and whether they were adequate for the task in hand. In November of 2002, some £500 million was made available for preparations, some of which was for equipment.

He stated unequivocally, "I made it absolutely clear that every application that was made for equipment and every application that was made for resources necessary for the conduct of the campaign in Iraq had to be met by the Treasury, and we created a system that was quick and fast-moving so that we could make sure the Ministry of Defence had the equipment they
needed as quickly as possible." This is the crux of the matter on this issue. There are contrary statements from military chiefs who say the equipment wasn't there, and that Mr Brown even refused funds, and it is the truth of this which we will examine now.

Mr Brown said that he knew of no occasion when a request for equipment was turned down. In August of 2009 Sir Richard Dannatt stood down as the head of the army because he said, of his repeated requests for equipment, and poor pay and conditions for the troops. The equipment issue however is a very emotive one. Many young soldiers have died, and the blame is often put on inadequate equipment being supplied.

This has been followed up recently by a statement by former special forces chief Sir Graeme Lamb that the SAS were denied even 'Vietnam-era equipment.' However, this strikes me as going too far. There may well have been shortages, but if the equipment was so outdated, then that information would have come out long before now. He may well have just been trying to make a point, but such accusations merely generate heat and not light. Sir Graeme's outburst is contradicted, and his views described as 'outdated' by senior defence staff, that equipment had improved dramatically since Sir David Richards took over as Chief of the General Staff last August.

The former defence staff chief, Lord Guthrie (1997-2001), said in an interview with The Times, "Not fully funding the Army in the way they had asked ... undoubtedly cost the lives of soldiers. He should be asked why he was so unsympathetic towards defence and so sympathetic to other departments.” This is a fair question, and there is certainly a perception that funding for equipment was lacking. Much of this coming from the families of those who fought in Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Gordon Brown was insistent that there were no set limits on equipment, and that if more was required, they should request it. Indeed, he talked about the Challenger tanks that had to be specifically prepared for the Iraqi terrain, and that £2 billion pounds was spent out of the £8 billion total on supplying equipment.

He said that vehicles required for the terrain were supplied when requested, and there were no issues of delay. However, as Lawrence Freedman pointed out, if the requests for UORs (urgent operational requirements) are too frequent, this puts a lot of pressure on the defence budget, due to training and maintenance requirements.

A point that Mr brown made time and again was that the costs of running the Iraq operation were in addition to the consistently rising defence budget. He felt this was very important because he was saying that, "I know our military staff would like to have even more equipment and would like to spend more, but we had a rising defence budget at that time and on top of that we met every expense associated with Iraq." Now, this is true, but it does not answer the central issue as to whether the troops had the correct equipment. He was shifting the emphasis here onto whether, in fact, the necessary equipment was being ordered by those in a position to do so.

"It is not for me to make the decisions that the military themselves, along with the Defence Secretary, can make about specific items of equipment, but the real terms rise in spending was there for the military to make the decision as they thought best." As Mr brown said to the committee.

The families of those killed in Iraq were asking three questions; "(W)ere you aware of concerns about the lack of armoured vehicles; did you receive any requests for funding, particularly between 1997 and 2006, for the purchase of armoured vehicles; and lastly, were any concerns raised with you about the use of Snatch Land Rovers?" Mr Brown expressed his sympathies for the families, but still insisted all requests were met. Indeed he says the military chiefs constantly assured him of this.

In reference to particular vehicles, Bulldogs and Mastiffs, Mr Brown said that they were supplied as quickly as procurement allowed, and the money was released immediately. But, according to the Prime Minister the ordering process, "(E)ven if it had been carried out in full, which it hasn't been because of military decisions, that would have not given us the right vehicles, as I understand it, for Iraq." There is a severe 'Not me gov' culture here on both sides. The military saying the correct equipment isn't being provided, and the politicians saying it wasn't ordered.

It was in this area of defence funding that Gordon Brown came into his own. As he read out a whole list of statistics regarding year on year allocation, and indeed that the defence department had received money on top of that allocated in the spending reviews. This seemed to take Sir Lawrence Freedman aback, and he rather stumbled into his next question, without any follow up.

Mr brown then continued his offensive, and said that the Ministry of Defence wished to increase spending by 9% in 2002, whereas they had been allocated an increase of 3.6%, which as he pointed out, would have set a bad precedent for spending in other departments.

Indeed, although at one stage the Chiefs of the Defence Staff, Lord Walker the most prominent, threatened resignation, eventually a compromise was reached, and Lord Walker wrote a letter to the then Chancellor, "Although the settlement is tight, I should be able to make it clear that the chiefs have been the architects of the modernisation plans and they are not the result of inadequate funding." This seems to put the ball firmly back in the military court in the months leading up to the invasion.

However, there was a sting in the tail to this questioning. Sir Lawrence brought up a Defence Committee report dated just yesterday that implied that these constant adjustments in attempting to keep equipment procurement within budget, made it difficult to deliver this on time, and within cost. Therefore, "(S)omehow we haven't managed the equipment programme well enough over the past decade to be able to produce the equipment that's needed for our forces at time and at cost."

This raised a big issue with the equipment, or at least large scale equipment, that is a problem for the military. Indeed, it is a similar concern for the NHS and other areas where research and development, and technology are a large part of the cost. When equipment is purchased, 'defence inflation' as Sir Richard Dannatt called it, it is done so at a price, but often this can change, and although over the years this policy has been altered to more fixed price contracts, it does create a problem of ensuring equipment to standard, and keeping it within cost.

Additionally, the time factor is a crucial one. In 2005 a new Lynx helicopter was ordered, but because of procurement, and design and development, it won't be ready until 2014. This would seem to indicate, that the additional helicopters required for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, would have needed to be ordered, with a knowledge these conflicts were going to arise. As to whether already existing machines could have been bought more quickly, I expect they could have, and issues of preparing them for the specific conditions they would encounter, more rapidly put into operation.

It was here that the lack of experts on the Chilcot Committee really showed itself, and a seeming fear to press the big fish. Perhaps having the Prime Minister in front of them left them a bit star struck, and they felt unsure about driving home points. There seemed to be a difference of opinion regarding helicopter supply between the Public Accounts Committee and the MoD, but Freedman wanted to move on because of time.

It would have been really important to question Gordon Brown on this. In 2002, there were complaints that helicopters were in serious short supply, with the PAC saying there was a 38% gap between needs and provision. Some accuse the Prime Minister of misleading, but you can not mislead, or dissemble as Lord Boyce accused him, if he is not sufficiently pressed by the committee.

In today's Telegraph Lord Guthrie said that what Mr Brown said about providing all the military is not true. However, this is contradicted by Sir Richard Dannatt who said that what The Prime Minister said was 'narrowly factually correct.' Both men speak of the problem of 'defence inflation,' where increases are not adequately covered by inflation matching budget increases, but also about different time periods. Throughout his evidence Gordon Brown was very careful to maintain that he ensured that urgent operational requests for the Iraq invasion and occupation were met. Whereas Lord Guthrie was talking about 1998.

This is the problem for the ordinary observer. These semantic games will go on, and as we do not have access to all the figures, we are not really in a position to judge who is telling the truth. Both sides will attempt to protect their own backs, and there is no way of saying who is really telling the truth.

So what can we make of Gordon Brown's performance yesterday? As I said in opening, he was certainly in confident mood. He appeared to have all the information at his fingertips, something many of the panel seemed to be sadly lacking.

He was able far too easily to control the agenda. Everytime he was aked about situation leading up to the invasion, and the question of weapons of mass destruction, he would steer it onto the issue of Iraqi flouting of United nations resolutions, especially 1441.

To his credit he didn't avoid the issue of collective responsibility, but at the same time, indicated that he wasn't present at important times, such as when Lord Goldsmith first expressed his doubts. It also seems unlikely that he was totally unaware of the contents of Topy Blair's correspondence with President Bush, unless he was by this time so isolated from the centre of real power, which could be what Clare Short meant when giving her evidence.

Gordon Brown came well armed with statistics regarding defence spending for the years 2002-6, and quoted them with alacrity. Everytime the Committee attempted to get onto the subject of equipment he would repeat, in varying ways, "(T)hat there would be no financial barrier to doing what was necessary to be done."

He then cleverly switched the focus onto the role of the military chiefs themselves. Indicating that they had the responsibility of actually ordering the correct equipment. This is certainly true, but whilst there may have been real terms increases in defence spending, the very nature of the business means that in practical terms, this may not actually be enough.

However, as he said, defence is competing with many other departments for government money, and takes a larger share than almost any other. The problem is getting the balance right, but because in wartime young men and women's lives are on the line, this can never sound like an adequate explanation. But, if the Public Acounts Committee report is correct, then there was a shortfall in helicopters at an important time in operations, and the question is how much is Mr Brown responsible for this?

He did have his fingers on the purse strings, and perhaps more money should have been allocated for specific pieces of equipment. But, the military chiefs also have a responsibility to ensure they have the correct equipment on hand, and that the troops are adequately trained to use it. Both sides blaming the other does nothing to clear up the debate, and the political ramifications will rumble on.

The Chilcot Inquiry has uncovered a lot of information, and a story has unfolded. But they have often failed to really get to the heart of issues, and yesterday was no different. Gordon Brown resolutely defended his position throughout the period leading up to, and during the Iraq conflict and occupation. The Committee has come under a lot of criticism, and once again failed to press home important ponts. What did he say and do when it was apparent there weren't any WMD? And why did he stay in place when it became so obvious that reconstruction was almost an afterthought?

Gordon Brown seems to elicit more vitriol from political opponents than Tony Blair ever did, and they just seem to pick up on the comments by former military chiefs, without reading and listening to what was said yesterday. There are two sides to this story, and both are at fault. The families of all those who have fought, especially those who died, deserve a full explanation regarding this conflict, and yesterday didn't really do much to enlighten anybody. However, unlike Tony Blair, Gordon Brown sincerely expressed his sympathies for the familes who lost children, brothers, sisters and parents, and I will end with the words he rounded off his evidence with;

"I want to end by emphasising, if you will allow me to do so, that the soldiers and the civilians who gave their lives in Iraq, deserve both our sympathy and our debt of gratitude and no one who makes the decisions that Cabinets and governments have to make can do so without recognising that lives are affected and sometimes lives are lost as a result of the big decisions and big challenges we have got to meet. So I want us to recognise that people from the service families lost their lives, but also that civilians lost their lives in Iraq and we have got to bear that in mind in all the decisions that we make for the future."