Former military heads say a request for helicopters was denied Former heads of the armed forces have strongly challenged Gordon Brown's evidence to the Iraq war inquiry.The prime minister, who was chancellor when the war began, said the military had been given everything it asked for. But Lord Guthrie, ex-chief of the defence staff, said in the Daily Telegraph that armed forces had been denied a request for more helicopters. His successor, Lord Boyce, told the Times Mr Brown had been "disingenuous". No 10 rejected the criticisms. Downing Street insisted that Mr Brown could not have been clearer in his response to questions about military funding. Sacrifices acknowledgedIt also repeated his statement that no request for equipment had ever been turned down. But another former defence chief - General Sir Richard Dannatt - told the BBC that while the prime minister may have been "narrowly and precisely correct" on his evidence on military spending, he had not addressed the issue of "underlying underfunding" going back to 1997.[Read more...]