LONDON - Britain's backing for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was "the right decision," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday as he fought off critics. Facing questions about his role in funding the war as finance minister under Tony Blair, Brown said Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had flouted international law for years. "It was the right decision and it was for the right reasons," Brown said in opening comments to the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain's role in the conflict. "This is the gravest decision of all to make," he said, but added: "Fourteen resolutions were passed by the United Nations, and at the end of the day it was impossible to persuade him that he should abide by international law." Witnesses to the inquiry, including the defence minister at the time of the invasion, Geoff Hoon, have said the military lacked sufficient funding and equipment for years before the war. Adding to the pressure, a former chief of the defence staff has alleged British soldiers' lives were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan because Brown turned down pleas for better equipment. General Charles Guthrie, who led the armed forces from 1997 to 2001, told Friday's edition of The Times: "Not fully funding the army in the way they had asked... undoubtedly cost the lives of soldiers. "He should be asked why he was so unsympathetic towards defence and so sympathetic to other departments."
