The U.K. government has been under pressure for some years to hold an inquiry into British participation in the Iraq war and on the events that led up to the decision to go to war. The various previous inquiries were seen by many as inadequate or whitewash. The government eventually conceded that once British forces had been withdrawn from Iraq, a wide ranging inquiry would be held.

In due course the government appointed a five-man panel. It was not to be a judicial review, nor was it to apportion blame; it was to clarify the facts. To head this inquiry the government appointed Sir John Chilcot, a retired senior civil servant. The other members of the inquiry team are a senior retired diplomat, two historians and a peeress who sits in the House of Lords as an independent.

The inquiry has begun to take evidence from civil servants who were involved with intelligence and planning in the run up to the war. So far nothing very startling has emerged and as the inquiry has no lawyers on the panel the questioning has been polite rather than penetrating. But some points have become clear. The British intelligence community knew that Iraq President Saddam Hussein's regime did not support al-Qaida and that at least two weeks before the invasion Iraq did not have any ready weapons of mass destruction.