Tony Blair was among witnesses to appear before the Iraq Inquiry The Iraq Inquiry will not be published until the autumn at the earliest, it has emerged.
In February its chairman refused to set a deadline, but publication had been expected in the summer.
It was hard to say how long it would take because of the need to declassify documents and give those criticised the right to reply, Sir John Chilcot said.
The inquiry is examining events between 2001 and 2009, including the decision to go to war, and lessons learnt.
There were more than 100 public hearings between November 2009 and February 2011.
Sir John said in February the report had to “do justice” to all the evidence it had received and he would not set an “artificial deadline” but his committee hoped to publish as soon as possible.
On Thursday in a statement on the Iraq Inquiry website , he said the committee now hoped “to present our report to the prime minister later this year but not before Parliament’s summer recess”.
“Writing a report covering so wide and complex a time period necessarily takes time. Whilst writing the report, we are also simultaneously seeking the declassification of much relevant material so the public will understand why and how the inquiry has reached its conclusions.
“If the Iraq Inquiry chooses to make criticisms, as is the case with all public inquiries, this would necessarily involve further processes to give those criticised the opportunity to respond. We cannot predict now how long that would take.”
The inquiry has also published further witness statements and declassified documents on its website.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.