In Testimony, Brown Says Iraq War Was 'Right Decision'

"I believe this is the gravest decision of all, to make a decision to go to war," Mr. Brown said. "It was the right decision made for the right reasons."

But, addressing a panel of four knights and a peer in London's Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center, he offered veiled criticism of the preparations to rebuild Iraq after the invasion, when the country descended into lawlessness, terrorism and sectarian strife.

"It was one of my regrets that I wasn't able to be more successful in pushing the Americans on this issue -- that the planning for reconstruction was essential, just the same as planning for the war," he said.

Britain was America's closest diplomatic and military ally in the initial fighting and lost 179 service members before the last of its combat troops withdrew from southern Iraq last year. The war was deeply divisive in Britain, with huge protests on the streets and many people accusing the former prime minister, Tony Blair, of leading the nation to war under false pretenses by insisting that Baghdad possessed unconventional weapons.

For much of Mr. Blair's decade in office, he and Mr. Brown were bitter rivals, with Mr. Brown pressing for Mr. Blair's job. But, referring to the question of Mr. Blair's behavior in the months leading to the war -- when many Britons suspected Mr. Blair had given private assurances of British support to President George W. Bush -- Mr. Brown said Friday, "Everything Mr. Blair did, he did properly."

While he aligned himself with the broad policy pursued by Mr. Blair, however, Mr. Brown sought at the inquiry to project a more compassionate to the human cost of the war.

Mr. Blair testified before the same inquiry in January and, despite being invited to do so, withheld any apology or expression of contrition.

By contrast, Mr. Brown said on Friday that he wished to pay his respects to British soldiers sent to Iraq for their sacrifice and to acknowledge the loss of life among them. He also referred to Iraqi civilian losses saying "any loss of life is something that makes us very sad."

Mr. Brown said conversations with intelligence officials in 2002 and 2003 "led me to believe that Iraq was a threat that had to be dealt with by the actions of the international community." But, he said, the British authorities concluded only in the days before the invasion that there was no prospect of a diplomatic settlement.

"Right up to the last minute, right up to the last weekend, I think many of us were hopeful that the diplomatic route would succeed," he said.

Mr. Brown indicated that intelligence information about Iraq's supposed arsenal of unconventional weapons -- none of which were found after the invasion -- seemed more decisive at the time of the invasion.

"At that time there was a greater certainty amongst the intelligence community that this weaponry was there," he said, adding, "I think we have learned that intelligence can give us insights into what is happening, but we have got to be more sure, as people have recognized, about the nature of the intelligence we were receiving from certain people."

Mr. Brown returned repeatedly to the issue of post-war reconstruction, saying, "We could not persuade the Americans that this had to take the priority it deserves."

"You can't win the peace simply by military action," he said. "You need economic development. People have got to have a stake in the future." He urged the creation of a specialized international agency specifically to rebuild states laboring under the traumas of war and upheaval. Without the support of local people, he said, "you become very quickly an army of occupation instead of an army of liberation. We never wanted to be an army of occupation."

The timing of Mr. Brown's appearance as a national election approaches suggested that he was seeking to defuse the political impact of questions by British military leaders over his attitude toward spending on British forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also seemed keen to put forward his own version of events in Iraq, seeking to garner some political advantage from a perilous issue.

Mr. Brown convened the inquiry last summer to redeem a pledge by his Labour Party to examine the war. Initially, he said its hearings would take place largely behind closed doors, but a public outcry forced him to reverse that decision. He had indicated that he would testify in person only after elections that may be held on May 6 or earlier.

Earlier in the inquiry, which began public hearings last November, the former defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, said Mr. Brown's policies as chancellor of the Exchequer forced commanders to "make some rather difficult cuts." Military chiefs have also suggested that they threatened to quit in 2004 in a dispute over funding.

Sir Kevin Tebbit, the ranking civil servant at the Defense Ministry, had also said Mr. Brown "instituted a complete guillotine" on the defense budget in September 2003.

But Mr. Brown said he had promised Mr. Blair in 2002 that there would be "no financial constraints for the military options" under discussion at the time.

"I told him that I would not -- and this was right at the beginning -- I would not try to rule out any military option on the grounds of cost, quite the opposite," he said.

Mr. Brown said the Iraq war cost Britain about one billion pounds a year, roughly $1.5 billion at current exchange rates, and he denied that commanders had been denied the funds they needed for equipment to safeguard British forces.

"I said that every single request for equipment had to be met and every request was met," he said. "At any point, commanders were able to ask for equipment that they needed, and I know of no occasion when they were turned down."

Mr. Brown was chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007, when he succeeded Mr. Blair as prime minister, a post he held when British combat troops completed their withdrawal last year.