Iraq anniversary

Iraq remains a hugely divisive political issue five years after US-led forces invaded the country on March 20th 2003.

The fifth anniversary has prompted further reassessments of the country's progress after the fall of its former dictator Saddam Hussein.

Coalition forces have struggled to provide security in that period, with sectarian violence adding to the initial anti-coalition insurgency and building to crisis point last year.

US president George Bush's controversial 'troop surge' policy appears to have lowered violence levels, however, while British forces in the south of the country completed their handover to Iraqi authorities by the autumn.

The timing of withdrawal of British troops from the Basra area is diminishing in significance as the number of soldiers there falls to 2,500 by the spring, but attention on the circumstances surrounding the UK's decision to go to war continues to intensify.

Earlier this week Gordon Brown conceded an inquiry into the intelligence failures leading up to the war, the conflict itself and post-invasion reconstruction efforts would take place at some stage in the future.

Opposition parties want such an inquiry as soon as possible.

The unprecedented release of Cabinet minutes about Iraq from March 2003 and an information tribunal ruling in January that Lord Hutton's inquiry should not be taken as the "final word" on the matter have added to campaigns for further probes into the decision to go to war.

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