Gordon Brown Blames US for Blunders in Iraq

Gordon Brown says he still believes that going to war in Iraq was “the right decision made for the right reasons,” but he doesn’t think the aftermath was well handled, he told the Chilcot war inquiry today. “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.

The current PM said that, as chancellor, he hadn’t been privy to all of Tony Blair’s war meetings, couldn’t recall seeing the “options document” detailing the path to the war, and had no idea that the attorney general was still questioning the war’s legality just weeks before the invasion. But he said he’d been regularly briefed and defended his predecessor’s conduct, saying, “Everything Mr. Blair did, he did properly.” (More Gordon Brown stories.)