Brown to face Iraq inquiry before election

Gordon Brown finally bowed to intense political pressure today and agreed to appear before the Iraq Inquiry before the general election in the UK.

In a brief statement at the start of today’s hearing, the inquiry chairman John Chilcot confirmed Mr Brown had taken up an offer to give evidence within the next two months.

It is expected he will appear in late February or early March.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband and International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander – who had also been scheduled for after the election – have also offered to give evidence before the country goes to the polls.

Sir John had originally ruled that the inquiry would not take evidence from ministers who still had responsibilities relating to Iraq before the election because he did not want it to be used as a “political platform”.

In a letter to Mr Brown, Sir John said the inquiry panel “remain concerned about that mounting risk”.

However, he said they had now accepted “as a matter of fairness” that the Prime Minister and his two colleagues should be given the chance to appear before the election if they chose.

The pressure on Mr Brown intensified this week after former defence secretary Geoff Hoon told the inquiry that the Treasury – under Mr Brown when he was chancellor – starved the armed forces of funds in the build up to the war.

Following the invasion, Mr Hoon said the Treasury had then cut the Ministry of Defence’s equipment budget – forcing it to cancel orders for helicopters which could have been used in current operations in Afghanistan.

Downing Street strongly denied Mr Brown’s decision to bring forward his appearance was related to Mr Hoon’s evidence.

“The Prime Minister is keen to take up the opportunity to state the case why Britain was right to take the action that it did,” Mr Brown’s spokesman said.

“He has nothing to hide at all.”

Giving evidence today, the permanent secretary at the Treasury, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, denied the MoD had been “starved of resource” in the run up to the invasion.

“When a war is in prospect, the narrow Treasury view that public spending is a bad thing tends to be put to one side, and we get behind the national interest and we start signing the cheques,” he said.

He confirmed that the MoD had to be “pulled up” after the invasion, but suggested that the department had only itself to blame after it took advantage of new Whitehall accounting rules to increase spending on future equipment.

“Had it stuck to the cash figures in the original settlement, that situation wouldn’t have arisen,” he said.