In 2003, shortly after the beginning of the Iraq War, British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived at the United States Congress to rapturous applause. At the end of a standing ovation he began a speech in which he announced that the use of history in developing foreign policy was defunct. For him, at the beginning of what would become the most controversial and criticised war of a generation, there had never been a time when ‘a study of history provides so little instruction for our present day’.

It was not long after this speech that Iraq descended into postwar chaos and accusations of blame for the disastrous events emerged. Historians and commentators quickly asked how, given Britain had so much experience in Iraq, had policy-makers got post-war planning so wrong? Britain had been responsible for the founding of the state of Iraq in 1919 and established its Hashemite monarchy. It had governed the country under a League of Nations mandate until 1932 and maintained close links throughout the twentieth century: intervening against a coup in 1941, maintaining military occupation until 1947, keeping the country as a satellite state until 1958 and intervening again in 1991. How then, with all of the lessons of history at its disposal, had the government failed to understand the complexities of governing the Iraqi nation? The accusation was soon made that British policy-makers had failed to learn the lessons of history.

Despite Tony Blair's statement to Congress, the government quickly searched for ways to counteract the allegations that it had not learned from the past. A flurry of reports were produced to demonstrate to the public that lessons were at least being identified from the Iraq operation. As the 20th Armoured Brigade lowered the mission flag in Basra, Whitehall discussed culminating their efforts with a public inquiry. By the summer of 2009 the Iraq Inquiry had been announced under the Chairmanship of Sir John Chilcot.