Brown is implicated in the debate over the army's fleet of helicopters because he was chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, in then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's government when the chopper budget was slashed by $2.3 billion five years ago.
"Because Gordon Brown wasn't willing to pay for Tony Blair's wars, the army in particular, but all our armed forces, are suffering," Liam Fox, the defense spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, told the BBC.
Although it has been simmering as a political issue for some time, the war in Afghanistan was pushed to the forefront by the string of deaths last week.
Britain's newspapers grieved over "our boys." Mourners laid floral tributes across the country in remembrance. Large crowds have turned out to greet returning soldiers and the bodies of those killed.
As of last Friday, 184 British military personnel had died in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban there in 2001. That is five more than have been killed in Iraq.
Most of Britain's 9,000 troops are deployed in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, where the Taliban is strongest and the conflict at its most violent. Although there is cross-party agreement in Parliament that Britain needs to stay the course in Afghanistan, ordinary Britons are divided over the issue.
The Guardian newspaper reported last month that senior military officials had requested an increase of 2,000 soldiers, but Brown's government agreed to a further deployment of only 700 to help secure the presidential election to be held in Afghanistan in August.
Among the attendees at Thorneloe's funeral was Prince Charles, who knew the lieutenant colonel and described him as among the best officers of his generation.
Thorneloe, Britain's most senior officer to fall in combat since the 1982 Falklands War, was killed July 1 when a roadside bomb ripped through his armored vehicle in Helmand province. An 18-year-old soldier was also killed in the explosion.
Thorneloe was praised at the service as a commander who "led from the front."
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henry.chu@latimes.com
