The US 'misled' the UK over Iraq WMDs information, says Gordon Brown

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested that the UK was misled by the US over Weapons of Mass Destruction prior to entering the Iraq War.

In his memoirs, Brown said that the US intelligence, which challenged whether there were WMDs in Iraq, was not shared with the UK before it entered the war in 2003.

Brown said that "we were not just misinformed, but misled", claiming that he wasn't made aware of the "crucial" documents until after he left office in 2010.

The UK joined the US in 2003 as part of a major offensive to track down the weapons that were believed to be in the possession of then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The war divided opinion in the UK, with mass protests on the streets against the conflict which claimed the lives of 179 troops.

Before entering the war, British intelligence had suggested in 2002 that Iraq was capable of possessing such weapons.

Writing about the intelligence that he and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair saw, Brown said: "I was told they knew where the weapons were.

"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 Brown said a report ordered by then-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "forcibly challenged" this view. Brown how feels that that the entire claims were based more on "analytic assumptions" than actual evidence.

"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," Brown wrote.

The UK may not have ever taken part if the intelligence had been shared before 2003 Brown suggested.

"Given that Iraq had no usable chemical, biological or nuclear weapons that it could deploy and was not about to attack the coalition, then two tests of a just war were not met: war could not be justified."

But despite this, he did write that the failure by Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions did mean that some action was needed.