LONDON -- New Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged there were failures in planning for post-invasion Iraq, and said Wednesday that Britain would shift its forces there away from combat while investing more in Iraq's economy.
Brown, in office for two weeks, said he had not set a timetable to withdraw the 5,500 British troops stationed mainly around the southern Iraqi city of Basra and that he would respect his obligations to the United Nations and the Iraqi government.
But, without offering specifics, he said there would be an increase in resources aimed at stimulating Iraq's economy as troops switch from "a combat role to an overwatch role."
"One of the failures at the beginning (of the U.S.-led invasion) was that we didn't put the resources and the help into the economic reconstruction that was necessary," Brown told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Brown defended his predecessor over prewar intelligence, saying Tony Blair had fully apologized for presenting a later discredited dossier of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
"Tony Blair went to the House of Commons and said very clearly that he was sorry for what had happened," Brown told BBC radio's Today program.
The new leader also repeated Blair's statements that policy in Iraq and Afghanistan had no impact on the threat to Britain from terrorism -- despite three recent failed bombings in London and Scotland.
Britain would be at risk "whatever was happening in Afghanistan or Iraq," he said.
Brown said no country could be "secure in a situation where you have a set of terrorist groups, loosely linked as al-Qaida, that are determined to practice carnage across the world."
Al-Qaida-linked terrorists "have struck in many, many countries, have organizations and cells operating right across Europe and in other countries including, of course, Africa as well as in America," Brown said.
Later in parliament, Brown sought to distance himself from the conflict that tainted Blair's leadership, unveiling a new legislative program tightly focused on domestic policy.
Brown said he would set five yearly targets up to 2050 to lower greenhouse gas emissions, making "Britain the first country in the world to introduce a legal framework" for the carbon emission reduction.
He also promised to sanction the building of 3 million new homes by 2020. Disused military bases and hospital sites would be used in the building program, which would also include low carbon emission "eco-towns."
Brown also said lawmakers will consider allowing wiretap recordings -- currently inadmissible evidence -- to be used in terrorism court cases and increasing the 28-day limit for police to question terror suspects before they must be released or charged.
In announcing a slate of proposed laws, Brown broke with a centuries-old convention that keeps each year's agenda secret until Britain's monarch opens the parliamentary session -- which begins each autumn and runs until the following summer.
Although Queen Elizabeth II will formally announce the program when she delivers a speech to lawmakers in a ceremony Nov. 6, Brown gave broad details of his plans.
He said he broke with tradition to let lawmakers and the public debate the new program before it is formally set out in the autumn.
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