Chilcot Inquiry

The Iraq Inquiry, also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, was a British public inquiry into the nation's role in the Iraq War. The inquiry was announced on 15 June 2009 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with an initial announcement that proceedings would take place in private, a decision which was subsequently reversed after receiving criticism in the media and the House of Commons.

The Inquiry was pursued by a committee of Privy Counsellors with broad terms of reference to consider the Britain's involvement in Iraq between mid-2001 and July 2009. It covered the run-up to the conflict, the subsequent military action and its aftermath with the purpose to establish the way decisions were made, to determine what happened and to identify lessons to ensure that in a similar situation in future, the British government is equipped to respond in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country. The open sessions of the inquiry commenced on 24 November 2009 and concluded on 2 February 2011.

In July 2012, the government vetoed the release of the documents to the Inquiry detailing minutes of Cabinet meetings in the days leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Concurrently, the British Foreign Office successfully appealed against a judge's ruling which had ordered disclosure of extracts of a conversation between George W. Bush and Tony Blair days before the invasion. The government stated that revealing a phone call conversation between Bush and Blair before the invasion would present a "significant danger" to British-American relations.