Comment: Brown outdoes Blair at Iraq inquiry
Gordon Brown at the Iraq inquiry
Friday, 05, Mar 2010 05:00
Gordon Brown's appearance at the Iraq inquiry today was only ever going to be about damage limitation for the chancellor-turned-prime-minister. Mission accomplished.
By Matthew Champion.
When Tony Blair arrived at the QE2 conference centre at the end of January he did so via the back door - the same way he would later leave - avoiding around 100 protestors baying for his blood.
A ballot to decide who gained seats for the cramped auditorium received 3,041 applications, and although his testimony failed to live up to its hype it still contained moments of drama, such as when he repeatedly appeared to suggest Iran was as much a risk in 2010 as Iraq was in 2003 and when members of the audience called him a "liar" and a "murderer" when he said he had "no regrets" from the war.
Today's evidence from his replacement as prime minister and chancellor at the time of the invasion was never billed as highly or likely to match the lofty news expectations of Blair.
But Gordon Brown, who was accused of applying a guillotine to defence budgets prior to and during the war, was afforded the luxury of being able to arrive at the QE2 conference centre unmolested through the front door, although only 323 people applied to hear his evidence in person.
While Blair's hands shook and his voice quavered at the start of his marathon evidence session (which you can read about here), Brown strode confidently to his seat before Sir John Chilcot's panel and grasped control of the day's coverage with a headline-friendly soundbite that his old boss would have been proud of.
Within the first minutes of exchanges the prime minister had already declared that military intervention to topple Saddam Hussein was the "right decision made for the first reasons" - a line he would often repeat over the next four hours of testimony.
So far so Blair, but there were crucial differences. For the current prime minister the decision was only right because the invasion served as a warning to other rogue states that this would be their fate if they fell foul of their international obligations - very, very different from the deadly external threat posed by Saddam argument that Blair rolled out.
In addition, Brown felt no reluctance in expressing sadness at the deaths of UK service personnel and Iraqi civilians, something that his predecessor never felt comfortable doing in January.
It wasn't a perfect session by any means; Brown's claim that the future of international cooperation would be centred around the relationship between the US and Europe seemed like madness (but not as insane as Blair going after Iran), while his "lessons learned" statement was painfully-staged, as was a lot of the Q&A.
Before today's evidence session Brown had faced criticism from a succession of defence chiefs for pulling the plug on military spending, but time and time again the former chancellor said he had given the army every penny they had asked for, and he backed up his claims with an impressive use of military facts, figures and terminology; illustrated by his fluency in what helicopters blade could work in Iraq but not Afghanistan.
Our prime minister appearing unflustered and erudite before an inquiry panel into a deeply unpopular war just weeks before a general election - it seems improbable.
But Brown is clearly buzzing, boosted by several damaging weeks for the Conservatives, who have very little capital in the war regardless. Addressing the Scottish Liberal Democrats conference this afternoon Nick Clegg said the prime minister had finally "come clean" about his backing for the war.
Today could only have been damaging for Brown; very few voters would be swayed towards Labour by an impressive performance but many would have been convinced to stay at home if he bumbled in establishing his role in going to war or failed to express sadness at the deaths, civilian and military, the invasion caused.
He might have only attracted several hundred interested audience members and a fraction of column inches that his predecessor had, but Brown was able to leave the QE2 conference centre via the front door.