The former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown announced on 15 June 2009 that an Inquiry would be conducted to identify lessons that can be learned from the Iraq conflict. The Iraq Inquiry was officially launched on 30 July 2009. Are these lessons to be learned by the current generation of politicians, or their grandchildren?

Lord Justice Leveson  was commissioned on 13 July 2011. His inquiry (costs to end June £3.9m) published its report yesterday, just over sixteen months later. It would appear that Government inquiries can work quite quickly when they are examining other segments of society. But when they are investigating government itself, the hindrance and obfuscation is impressive only in its scale. It would appear that Sir John Chilcot will be able to report four and a half years, at the earliest,  after his inquiry was commissioned.

At its launch, Chilcot, set out his remit:

"Our terms of reference are very broad, but the essential points, as set out by the Prime Minister and agreed by the House of Commons, are that this is an Inquiry by a committee of Privy Counsellors. It will consider the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action and its aftermath. We will therefore be considering the UK's involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned. Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country."