The British are to hold an inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war, and how Britain came to be so closely involved with the Americans in the 2003 Iraq invasion.
This touches on one of the most divisive and controversial issues in modern British politics and already the air is filled with acrimonious argument about the way the inquiry should be organized, who should conduct it and what it should cover.
The government's initial proposal was that the inquiry should be held in secret, and report after about a year, and that no blame should be apportioned to anyone for what went wrong. Five members have been named as members of the committee holding the inquiry, including a former senior civil servant, a well-known academic, an ex-ambassador and an eminent historian.