“Given 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 as a last resort and invasion can’t now be seen as a proportionate response.”
The five-week war cost 33 British lives, 172 American ones and those of 30,000 Iraqis.
He says he was assured by then MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove that Iraq had WMDs.
Brown writes: “I was told they knew where the weapons were housed. I remember thinking it was almost as if they could give the street name and number.”
What Brown and Blair did not know was the US Defence Department had a report into WMD commissioned by then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and delivered to him in September 2002.
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Crucially, the report dashed Blair’s claim about biological weapons targeting UK territory.
Rumsfeld was told: “We doubt the processes are in place to produce longer-range missiles.”
Brown writes: “I had no idea key decision-makers in America were already aware the evidence on the existence of WMDs was weak, even negligible and in key areas non-existent.
“It is astonishing that none of us in the British government ever saw this American report.
“The intelligence had not established beyond doubt either that Saddam had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued.”