Tony Blair Confirms Iraq probe
Prime Minister Tony Blair told a committee of MPs at Westminster that the inquiry would look at the intelligence that was available to his government on the threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
However, Mr Blair insisted that the inquiry would not probe the political judgements he made at the time.
The inquiry will in effect be the fourth in Britain into the lead-up to last year's invasion of Iraq.
The formal announcement was made by the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in the House of Commons.
The Prime Minister still maintains that he was right to go to war on Iraq but said it was time to look at the intelligence on which he based his decision and whether that intelligence was correct or not.
He said the new inquiry should not be a re-run of the Hutton Inquiry which last week cleared his government of misusing intelligence for political purposes.
It comes after US President George W Bush ordered a similar inquiry in the United States.
