When Gordon Brown told Parlia-ment on June 15th that he was setting up an inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war, the prime minister barely mentioned the four preceding inquiries on the same topic. Two committees of mps and two government-appointed panels of experts had examined aspects of the decision to invade Iraq alongside American forces-and none had satisfied critics of that decision. Instead, Mr Brown found in the 1983 inquiry by Lord Franks into the outbreak of the Falklands war what he called the "best precedent" for an investigation of the origins and conduct of the Iraq war, and the subsequent occupation of that country.
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