Fires of Iraq War fail to dim as inquiries spill into 2012

Campaigning lawyers are also seeking a further two inquiries with wide-ranging remits to investigate allegations that UK forces abused and unlawfully killed Iraqi civilians while they controlled parts of southern Iraq.

British troops ended combat operations in Iraq in April 2009 after a war that lasted over six years, claimed the lives of 179 UK personnel and cost more than £9 billion.

The overarching Iraq Inquiry, chaired by retired senior civil servant Sir John Chilcot, has delayed publication of its final report into how Britain came to join the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and the conduct of the conflict.

The inquiry issued a statement in November saying that it would need at least until the summer of 2012 to complete its massive task.

They cited the difficulties of declassifying secret Government papers to quote in the long-awaited report.

Sir John and his panel focused on the decisions made by top politicians and officials, hearing evidence from Ministers, diplomats, spymasters and military commanders.

They are widely predicted to be scathing about the way former Prime Minister Tony Blair led the country into war despite serious questions about the legality of military action.

Meanwhile, another public inquiry is set to get under way in 2012 after being held up by the logistical difficulties of assembling evidence.

The Al-Sweady Inquiry is examining claims that UK soldiers murdered 20 or more Iraqis and tortured others after the “Battle of Danny Boy” in Maysan Province, southern Iraq, in May 2004. The Ministry of Defence vigorously denies the allegations and says those who died were killed on the battlefield.

The inquiry has appointed a team of retired British detectives to investigate what happened from scratch after an earlier Royal Military Police inquiry was judged to be inadequate.

Solicitor Phil Shiner, who represents the alleged Iraqi victims, expects that there will be further delays before counsel to the inquiry, Jonathan Acton Davis QC, makes his opening statement about the evidence in the case.

He said: “There is no sign of it opening because we have found hundreds of thousands of relevant documents, in particular all the emails from theatre (in Iraq) back to PJHQ (the military’s Permanent Joint Headquarters) and they have got to go through all of that.

“I won’t be surprised if the oral hearings in the Al-Sweady Inquiry don’t start until the summer.”

One public inquiry into Britain’s involvement in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 – covering the brutal death of father-of-two Baha Mousa at the hands of British soldiers in Basra, southern Iraq, in September 2003 – has already released its report.