Gordon Brown vowed yesterday to take on President George W Bush and the Americans over foreign policy as he spelt out plans to break from Tony Blair's approach to the "war on terror".
The Chancellor, who is on course to succeed Mr Blair as Prime Minister this summer, made clear he wanted to place Britain's national interest above the special relationship with Washington.
Mr. Brown also forced Mr Blair, his long-term rival, to authorise No 10 to issue its first statement denouncing the bungled execution of Saddam Hussein.
Mr Blair had declined to make any public comment after video footage emerged of the former Iraqi dictator being harangued by Shia guards as he waited on the scaffold.
But after Mr Brown told BBC1's Sunday AM that No 10 was obliged to issue a statement, Mr Blair rapidly let it be known that he thought the handling of the execution was "unacceptable".
As Mr Brown prepares to take over from Mr Blair, he is determined to signal a dramatic shift in the way No 10 handles its relations with the Bush White House.
Laying out his plans for a more distinctly British premiership than Mr Blair's, Mr Brown said he looked forward to working with Mr 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."
Mr Brown, who backed the 2003 Iraq invasion, said 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. In terms that will appeal to many Labour supporters but anger Mr Blair — and some in Washington — 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".
Suggesting that he would not follow Washington into any future military action against rogue nations such as Iran, Mr Brown said the kind of "cultural war" fought by the West against Communism in the 1940s and 1950s could be a "model" for the next chapter of the war on terror.
While he accepted his share of responsibility for Iraq — and was at pains to describe Mr Blair as a "brilliant Prime Minister" — his comments were part of a clear attempt to break with the Prime Minister's Iraq policies and conduct of policy with the US.
In recent weeks, the extent to which Mr Blair and his ministers were overruled by Washington on post-war strategy for Iraq has become clear.
Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary at the time of the war, has said he and Mr Blair "lost the argument" to the US over crucial issues, including the break up of the Iraqi army, which they blame for much of the chaos in the country.
At the start of a week in which President Bush is expected to announce an increase of at least 20,000 in the number of US troops in Iraq, Mr Brown insisted he would stick to plans to "scale down" by thousands the number of British soldiers there by the end of the year.
"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.
There are 132,000 US troops in Iraq, compared to about 7,000 from Britain. But President Bush is expected to announce plans on Thursday to send three more brigades over the next six weeks to stabilise Baghdad.
In the interview Mr Brown left the Prime Minister increasingly out on a limb over his refusal to speak out about Saddam's execution.
Asked for his view on the circumstances surrounding the hanging, the Chancellor said: "Now that we know the full picture of what happened we can sum this up as a deplorable set of events."
Sensing his isolation Mr Blair quickly authorised Downing Street to say he too regarded events surrounding the execution as "completely wrong" and "unacceptable."
Last week as Mr Blair remained on holiday at the Miami home of the former Bee Gee Robin Gibb, No 10 said only that he supported an Iraqi inquiry into the circumstances of the execution.
No 10 had refused to back John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, who said last week that the mobile phone footage of the event and other film of it was "deplorable".
Mr Blair has said he will make his first public comments on the execution this week, though No 10 refused to say last night whether he would do so in a speech, a press conference or during Question Time in the Commons on Wednesday.
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