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U.K. probe into Iraq invasion

LONDON: In what was seen as a sop to his critics ahead of the general election due in less than a year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday announced an independent inquiry into British involvement in the Iraq invasion but provoked a row by rejecting calls for it to be held in public.

Anti-war groups and families of soldiers killed in the invasion threatened to boycott it saying any inquiry held in “secret” would lack transparency and amount to a “whitewash”.

Mr. Brown justified the decision to hold the probe in private on grounds of national security and cited the inquiry held into the Falklands invasion in 1982 as a precedent. But he insisted that it would be “fully independent” of the government and would have powers to call for any government document and summon any witness.

The inquiry would start work next month and was expected to take more than a year to give its report.

Tory leader David Cameron called for an early report, saying otherwise the public would believe the whole process had been “fixed to make sure the government avoids having to face up to any inconvenient conclusions” before the general election.

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