After months of uncertainty, Britain has launched its 2012 Olympics bid to bring the Games to the London for the first time since 1948.

The government announced after a cabinet meeting on Thursday it would back the Olympics project "to the hilt" after lengthy debate about how the showpiece event, estimated to cost 2.4 billion pounds ($3.89 billion), would be funded.

"The government has decided to give its wholehearted backing to a bid to host the Olympic Games ... in London in 2012," Culture, Media and Sports Secretary Tessa Jowell told parliament.

New York, Madrid, Moscow and Leipzig are already in the 2012 race while Rio de Janeiro and Paris are considering bids -- the French capital is expected to enter the fray on May 21. Cities have until July 15 to declare their bids.

The winner will be announced by the International Olympic Committee in July 2005.

The London bid follows failed attempts by Birmingham (1992) and Manchester (1996 and 2000) to stage the world's biggest sporting event. England hosted the 1966 soccer World Cup and the European soccer championship in 1996.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet had been due to make a decision on the bid at the end of January, but preparations for the war in Iraq meant it was delayed four times.

Blair phoned International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge on Thursday to inform him of the government's backing for the bid, Jowell said.

HUGE EXPENSE

The Labour government was thought to be cool on the idea -- questioning if the huge expense could be justified at a time when key public services are crying out for cash.

The Millennium Dome in London, embraced by Blair as a showpiece of British excellence for the turn of the new century, quickly turned into a political embarrassment and gobbled up tens of millions of pounds of public money.

Britain's sporting reputation was tarnished after it was forced to pull out of staging the 2005 world athletics championships, having failed to build a stadium in London.

But last year's Commonwealth Games in Manchester helped repair the damage.

A large area of rundown east London would be regenerated if the bid was successful and the centrepiece of the project, the Olympic stadium, would be constructed on the remains of an old greyhound track.

Bid officials expect staging the Games would create around 9,000 fulltime jobs but there are doubts over whether London's creaking transport system could take the strain of carrying the flood of visitors.

London also staged the Summer Games in 1908. The 2004 Games will be held in Athens and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.