Chilcot under pressure to recall Brown over misleading evidence

Sir John Chilcot and his Iraq war inquiry team look set to come under increasing media and public pressure to recall Gordon Brown after his astonishing forced confession yesterday about defence spending during PMQs.

The row was made public after Conservative backbencher Tony Baldry MP asked our Unelected Prime Minister about the conflict between figures in the House of Commons library which contradicted Brown's evidence to Chilcot where he said "the defence budget was rising in real terms every year."

A number of senior military figures condemned Brown's evidence to Chilcot, but when David Cameron asked Brown about this in the previous week's PMQ's, there were angry scenes as Cameron responded to Labour backbenchers who apparently heckled across the floor of the House of Commons that the military leaders concerned were 'Tories'.

Today, Lord Guthrie - one such former military boss - tells The Times: "What I said was absolutely right and what he said was wrong. I am delighted that the Prime Minister has made this statement and admitted what I said was right and those who attacked me were wrong, intemperate and cheap."

He adds: "Undoubtedly the underfunding caused huge problems in Afghanistan and Iraq."

General Sir Mike Jackson tells the Daily Mail: "The figures can be pretty arcane, but the real question is, has defence been given the right resources to do what it it has been asked to do? And the answer to that is no."

And General Sir Richard Dannatt is quoted by The Sun as saying simply: "I am delighted that he is correcting what he said."

Today's Daily Telegraph reveals: "Figures compiled by the independent House of Commons Library show that when inflation is taken into account, the defence budget fell in at least three years since 1997. In 2004/5, the year after the invasion of Iraq, defence spending fell by 2.1 per cent."

Sky News reports: "[A] research note prepared by the House of Commons Library in October last year showed defence expenditure had fallen in real terms in four financial years since Labour came to power in 1997: 1997/98 (-2.2%); 1999/2000 (-0.4%); 2004/5 (-0.7%); and 2006/7 (-0.1%)."

The Daily Mail states: "[The figures] also reveal defence spending as a proportion of national income has fallen under New Labour to its lowest level since 1930."

This comes despite our brave troops losing their lives fighting a war in Afghanistan that has now been ongoing for far longer than World War II, and being forced to fight a war in Iraq which many now claim was an illegal war, based on a dossier of lies.

Conservative leader David Cameron last night told the BBC: "[Gordon Brown] can't hide from the facts which is, whether you look at the budget, whether you look at the expenditure, whether you do it on a cash basis, whether you do it on a resource accounting basis, the budget was cut. The money went down. And much more important than the process, and actually more important than the fact he misled the inquiry and Parliament, the most important thing is the fact that while our troops were at war, the defence budget was being cut. That's wrong.

The Telegraph carries a quote from Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who says: "[Gordon Brown's] attempt to rewrite history has failed and his fantasy figures have been exposed. He has made repeated and fundamentally false claims, misleading Parliament, the public and worst of all the Armed Forces and their families."

Gordon Brown has now written to the Chilcot Inquiry - the full text of his letter is available through the Sky News website.

However, critics of Brown have already noted that his letter to Sir John Chilcot contains no apologies - he merely explains his correspondence with the opening line: "I want to provide you with further detail about defence spending."

Lib Dem defence spokesman Nick Harvey is quoted as saying: "He should apologise for the fact that under his watch our troops have not had the equipment they need to do the job."

In an editorial opinion piece, ex-SAS man Andy McNab writes in The Sun: "Gordon Brown misled everyone. People have to remember this is the man who was Chancellor and then became Prime Minister. If anyone in the world should know the facts, it is him. This means that he has either lied or got his facts wrong. Whatever the reason, it is indefensible. The buck stops with him. Admitting he was wrong undermines any credibility he had left."