The secret Iraq deal that bought Mandelson’s loyalty to Brown

24 June 2009

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John Kampfner unveils the ignominious truth about Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry and reveals Peter Mandelson’s demand, when Brown’s future hung in the balance in early June, that the hearings be held in private. Even now Mandelson’s priority is to protect Brand Blair

And what of Brown? Far too little has been written about his role in the Iraq adventure. In 2002-03, the Chancellor was keen to ensure that his team talked to me for my book. They knew that many senior figures in Number 10, the Foreign Office and the military were co-operating and wanted to ensure their message got across. They were keen, under the cloak of anonymity, to portray the run-up to war as one of those examples of Blairite exuberance. Just wait for a serious prime minister, a professional, to take over, and all this kow-towing to the Americans, all this gunslinging would be a thing of the past. At no point, however, during the fraught meetings that led to war did Brown give anything but fulsome support to Blair. Not once did he seriously question the evidence. Not for him was the sifting through the intelligence material or the cross-questioning of the intelligence chiefs that Robin Cook undertook.

Indeed, one could argue that Brown’s role in the war effort was even more inglorious than Blair’s. He wanted it to be known that he had his misgivings, but he never aired them in public because at the same time he did not want to get on the wrong side of the many newspaper editors who were gung-ho for war. This was a piece of characteristic political calculation. In 2005, when Blair’s back was against the wall, and Alan Milburn’s general election strategy had stalled, Brown portrayed himself as the saviour of the campaign. When asked during a photo call whether he believed Blair had any case to answer for the war, he said emphatically he did not. In 2007, as he carried out his putsch, Brown was keen that the war formed a backdrop for Labour MPs’ discontent with Blair. He promised a new inquiry, with the implication that, this time, it would get to the truth. Once in power, he insisted that such an investigation should take place only after British forces had quit Basra.