By IRNA,
London : Peace protesters accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown as having “as much blood on his hands” as his predecessor Tony Blair for the illegal invasion of Iraq by being the “paymaster general” of the war.
“As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown signed the cheques that made the war possible,” Stop the War Coalition (STWC) said when trying to hand the prime minister a giant cheque for the £8.5 billion cost to Britain as he was giving evidence to the Iraq inquiry.
The cost was slaughtering 655,000 plus Iraqi civilians, displacing of four million others and the deaths of 179 British soldiers killed in action, the UK’s largest peace movement said.
The protest outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London came as Brown was being questioned by the inquiry to clarify on whether he had ‘no input’ in leading Britain into the US-led war as claimed by former International Development Secretary Clare Short.
The alternative evidence from Blair’s former communications director Alistair Campbell was that the prime minister was ‘closely involved’ in the 2003 decision to go to war in Iraq, at a time when he was chancellor.
“One fact is undeniable. Brown’s signature was needed on the cheques that funded the war. He had the power to scupper the war just by the threat of resignation and he didn’t,” SWTC said.
Brown walked past the protests after his car pulled up outside the front door of the conference centre, in contrast to Blair, who evaded demonstrations by arriving two hours early and slipping through the back door when he gave evidence in February.
At the beginning of his testimony, the prime minister defended the war, saying that it was the “right decision” as it was impossible to make former Iraq president Saddam Hussein abide by international law.