Britain's Gordon Brown says he will break with the Bush Administration strategy over the"war on terror".

According to today's Daily Telegraph, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, the expected succesor to British PM Tony Blair was very clear in a BBC interview that he has plans to break from Tony Blair's Washington alligned approach to the War on Jihad.

He said he wants to place Britain's national interest above the `special relationship' with Washington.

As Gordon Brown prepares to take over from Tony Blair he says he plans to signal a `dramatic shift' in the relations with the Bush White House.

Brown said he looked forward to working with President Bush and recognised the need for close links with the Americans.But, when asked if he would stick as closely to the president as Mr Blair had, he replied: "Obviously people who know me know that I will speak my mind. I'll be very frank.The British national interest is what I and my colleagues are about."

Brown originally backed the 2003 Iraq invasion, but now says he had since learned that only so much could be achieved against terrorists and religious fanatics by brute military force, intelligence, security work and policing. He said the fight to stop "extremist terrorist activities" would only be won after world leaders triumphed in a peaceful battle for "hearts and minds".

I wonder if he plans to implement this strategy against the jihadis in Britain? It doesn't seem to have worked too well, so far...

Brown also hinted that, under his leadership, Britain would not participate in any future military action against rogue nations such as Iran and that he apparently favors a "cultural war" similar to the Cold War - which interests me when I remember exactly how cooperative certain Labour governments and politicians were in that effort.

Part of the background on this is the wide spread publicizing in Britain on how Blair and his miisters were overruled by the Bush Administration on post-war strategy for Iraq in favor of the desert mirage of `Arab democracy.'

Geoff Hoon, then Britain's defence secretary at the time of the war, has gone public about how he and Mr Blair "lost the argument" to the US over crucial issues, including the break up of the Iraqi army.

Brown also said he plans to stick by plans to scale down if not eliminate the 7,000 British troops in Iraq by the end of 2007.

"I believe that it is true to say that by the end of the year there may be thousands less in Iraq than there are now," he told BBC1.

Brown was also at the center of a major political fracas in Britain over Saddam's execution, which he referred to as `deplorable'.

Blair had kept silent about it, which didn't go down well with his Labour colleages.
Finally, he was forced to issue a comment that he too regarded events surrounding the execution as "completely wrong" and "unacceptable."

I listen, watch and wonder....