Iraq inquiry attacked

Sir John Chilcot, chairman of Britain's official inquiry into the Iraq war. Photo / Getty Images.

Britain's official inquiry into the Iraq war has been accused of ignoring the deaths of the 100,000 Iraqi civilians estimated to have been killed since the 2003 invasion.

Research group Iraq Body Count said the equivalent of an "Iraq war inquest" was needed because the Chilcot inquiry set up by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had failed to address this issue.

The group believes the inquiry's terms of reference are so broad that it has been "able to obsess minutely over the 'war at home' to the detriment of everything else" and there had been no attempt by the Government to put a figure on Iraqi casualties.

But Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry chairman, said information from Iraq Body Count had been studied.

- Independent