05/03/2010 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown described Friday his country’s backing to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as “the right decision...for the right reasons.”
Brown told an inquiry into the 2003 invasion that former President Saddam Hussein had flouted international law for years, justifying Britain's military support in the war.
The inquiry is expected to focus on Brown’s role in funding the war as finance minister under former PM Tony Blair.
"This is the gravest decision of all to make a decision to go to war," Brown said.
"I believe we made the right decision for the right reasons because the international community had for years asked Saddam Hussein to abide by international law and the international obligations that he had accepted.
"Fourteen resolutions were passed by the United Nations and at the end of the day it was impossible to persuade him that he should abide by international law," Brown said.
Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer when Blair took British forces into the invasion alongside the United States under then president George W. Bush, despite huge public opposition.
Adding to pressure on Brown, a former chief of the defence staff has alleged British soldiers' lives were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan because Brown turned down pleas for better equipment.
General Charles Guthrie, who led the armed forces from 1997 to 2001, told Friday's edition of The Times: "Not fully funding the army in the way they had asked... undoubtedly cost the lives of soldiers.
The invasion of Iraq by mainly the United States and the United Kingdom was fully based on allegations that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Then US Secretary of State Collin Powel made a long presentation at the UN Security Council about Iraq’s alleged WMDs, and supported it with pictures, telephone calls recordings and intelligence, which all turned out to be baseless. No WMDs were found in now occupied Iraq.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
No comments:
Post a Comment