Iraq War Defense Chief Calls Gordon Brown A Liar: “The Ministry Of Defense Was Starved Of Funds”

March 6th, 2010 (3) Posted By Pat Dollard.

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Times Online:

Former commanders accused Gordon Brown of deliberately misleading the Iraq inquiry after he blamed the military for failing properly to equip the Armed Forces for war.

The Prime Minister denied putting the lives of British troops at risk by starving the military of equipment. In a confident performance yesterday at the Chilcot inquiry, he admitted curbing spending while troops were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to stop public finances spiralling out of control. But he insisted this had not affected soldiers on the front line.

Admiral Lord Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff up to the start of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, disagreed. “He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous. It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed,” he said.

“There may have been a 1.5 per cent increase in the defence budget but the MoD was starved of funds.”

Year on year when Mr Brown was Chancellor it failed to get the money it needed to meet the level of activity demanded by the Government, he said.

Mr Brown said that every request for money for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and occupation of Iraq was swiftly approved by the Treasury. He shifted the blame on to generals when confronted with complaints from the relatives of soldiers killed by in attacks on Snatch Land Rovers.

Colonel Stuart Tootal, former commander of 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, said: “I am quite staggered by the lack of any sense of responsibility. He was the man with the purse strings.”

The Prime Minister repeatedly expressed sorrow for the British and Iraqi deaths. He told the inquiry: “I think this is the gravest decision to go to war. It was the right decision and it was for the right reasons.”

A No10 spokesman said: “The Prime Minister could not have been clearer in responses to repeated questions about military funding. Every request that the military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down.”

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  • thrasymakhos

    I am an admitted anglophile. What do you suppose that Winston Churchill would say to this human Brown stain?

    • mike3481

      Not a fucking word, Churchill wouldn’t allow that Brown piece of shit in his presence.

  • http://www.bootparkergriffith.com The Sentinel at the Gate

    This is exactly what happens when a liberal government takes control of the purse strings – defense spending is cut to support entitlement spending and the end result are deaths on the battlefield.

    Our dear old Dims are doing this right now. For years the left has always howled about defense spending proclaiming it’s too much when in actuality it is only about 20% (or less) of total spending with discretionary spending being the largest amount. But rather than recognize the importance of defense, the libs want to ensure a happy entitled voter base since a very low percentage of both libs and voter base ever spend time in the military. And, they hate the military.

    We’ve seen this situation over and over again in this country. An earlier generation of libs cut defense spending after WWI saying there was no need for such spending since there would be no more World Wars (remember that WWI was “the war to end all wars”). Result of this faulty logic; America was almost completely emasculated at the start of WWII. Soldiers before and at the outset of WWII literally trained with broomsticks as weapons. It took time and lots of money was made before we were ready to prosecute war on foreign soil.

    But fear not, the great appeaser is in the WH right now and he’s firmly convinced he can talk down any potential threat anywhere and from anybody. Unfortunately for him, his threats aren’t listening – ref. Kim Il Jong and the Taepo Dong II missiles, the uranium shipments to Iran, the Soviet base under construction on a Chavez island for starters. Obongo is talking, talking and talking but the dangerous world is not listening. They are gearing up to take down the US.