Iraq War: former prime minister Gordon Brown says UK 'misled' over WMDs

In a damning extract from his memoir, the former-Labour leader says "we were not just misinformed, but misled"

FILE - In this file photo dated Tuesday May 11, 2010, Britain's then Prime Minister Gordon Brown announces his resignation, outside No.10 Downing Street in London.  Brown describes in his new memoir revealed Monday Oct. 30, 2017, how he feared he was going blind while in power, saying he woke up one morning and could not see properly out of his one good eye forcing him to extemporise and abandon a prepared speech.  (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, FILE)
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The UK was misled over Saddam Hussein's access to weapons of mass destruction, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said.

Mr Brown accused the Pentagon of failing to share devastating intelligence that undermined the case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The former prime minister revealed the existence of a secret US report that raised serious doubts about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He has said it was withheld from the British government.

In a damning extract from his memoir, the former-Labour leader says "we were not just misinformed, but misled".

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Mr Brown says he became aware of the "crucial" paper after leaving office.

The UK joined the US-led invasion after both countries accused Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having links to terrorism.

"I was told they knew where the weapons were," Mr Brown writes.

"I remember thinking at the time that it was almost as if they could give me the street name and number where they were located."

But, Mr Brown,who was chancellor when America and Britain invaded Iraq, says a report commissioned at the time by the then-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "forcibly challenged" this view.

"If I am right that somewhere within the American system the truth about Iraq's lack of weapons was known, then we were not just misinformed but misled on the critical issue," he writes in My Life, Our Times.

The Chilcot inquiry, which took seven years, looked at the UK's involvement in the Iraq War and found Hussein posed "no imminent threat" when the US and UK invaded.

It concluded that "flawed" intelligence started the war.

Former prime minister Tony Blair defends his decision to go to war.

Mr Brown did say some action was required due to the failure of Saddam Hussein complying with UN resolutions.