Gordon Brown has just admitted to a very interesting meeting with Blair, around eight or nine months before the outbreak of war in March 2003.
Brown said that “early on” he met with Tony Blair and assured him that he would “not rule out” any military action on the grounds of cost. “Quite the opposite,” Brown said.
This is fascinating because of the politics rather than the finance.
Brown could have stopped Britain’s involvement in the war at any point. But he obviously gave Blair an early assurance that he would not stand in the way of him confronting Saddam Hussein.
The money was a pledge of support — or at least a promise to stay out of the way. Without it Blair’s drive to remove Saddam Hussein would have been scuppered.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey