45 mins WMD launch capability - or was it?

The Foreign Affairs Committee is holding an inquiry into whether the government "presented accurate and complete information to Parliament" in the period leading up to the Iraq war.

BBC Parliament will be broadcasting the committee sessions taking place in a concentrated series of hearings in the week commencing 16 June. The Committee will then report to Parliament in July.

Alongside the Security and Intelligence Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee brings to two the number of officially-sanctioned bodies probing the integrity of the government in the run up to the war.

And as a parliamentary body the Foreign Affairs Committee goes some way to placating those calling for a full independent judicial inquiry.

Some MPs have criticised the Government's decision to allow the Intelligence & Security Committee to conduct its own inquiry, because of its secrecy and its prime minister-appointed membership.

We have the embarrassment factor Donald Anderson, Foreign Affairs Committee

According to Leader of the House John Reid in his weekly business statement to the Commons, the government is confident the Intelligence and Security Committee will "discharge its functions", and that its privacy would not "diminish the acuteness of the questioning".

But the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Donald Anderson has suggested his Committee - an all-party committee answerable to Parliament - is better suited to provide comprehensive information.

"On the question of credibility our own inquiry will be more important," he said.

Citing his Committee's earlier reports into Sierra Leone and Gibraltar that had been critical of the government, Mr Anderson said the Foreign Affairs Committee had a "good track record on independence" although he conceded that some evidence might have to be heard in private:

"We would recognise national security interests and we would act responsibly. Ultimately the government with their own majority in parliament can prevail, but we have the embarrassment factor".

Dossier

The Foreign Affairs Committee's basic objective will be to try to uncover whether the government knowingly exaggerated or provided false intelligence claims.

The claims were published in a dossier detailing evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capabilities to help support Britain's justification for going to war.

A BBC correspondent's investigation revealed inside sources alleging the government had put pressure on the intelligence services to overstate the evidence.

And the Prime Minister's own denial has been compounded by the astonishing attack from Minister John Reid.

His picture of anonymous "rogue elements" in the security services attempting to destabilise the government has delighted conspiracy theorists the world over.

Interested parties have been invited to provide written evidence to the inquiry before 16 June.

Email the select committee at foraffcom@parliament.uk