DOWNING STREET distanced itself from Nick Clegg’s stance on the invasion of Iraq last night after the deputy prime minister declared it “illegal”.

British Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw hit back today at claims that he ignored legal advice that the Iraq war would be unlawful without further United Nations backing.

FORMER British cabinet minister Clare Short yesterday accused Tony Blair of lying over the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and said she believed the government’s chief lawyer at the time had misled the cabinet over its legality.

The Chilcot Inquiry will look into Britain’s stewardship of Basra and southern Iraq following the 2003 invasion today, as it takes evidence from two defence secretaries who held office after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

The Iraq Inquiry will resume public hearings in the UK today following the Christmas break, with further evidence about the efforts to stabilise the country in the wake of the 2003 invasion.

A former head of the British Army has claimed that “appalling” judgments by the US may have doubled the time it has taken to get Iraq into its current position.

US PRESIDENT BUSH wrapped up a whirlwind trip to two war zones yesterday that in many ways was a victory lap without a clear victory.

Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets today to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes at President George Bush.

FRANCE, which famously opposed the Iraq war, is in talks to resume sales of military equipment to Baghdad for the first time in nearly two decades, French and Iraqi officials say.

THE US military handed over control of the once brutally violent Anbar province to Iraqi forces yesterday, marking a major milestone in America’s plan eventually to send its troops home.

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan defended his bombshell book about the Bush administration today, saying he did not speak up against the overselling of war in Iraq because he gave the president the benefit of the doubt.

US presidential hopeful John McCain arrived in Baghdad today for an unexpected visit with Iraqi and US diplomatic and military officials.

The hundreds of thousands of people missing in Iraq are just the tip of the country’s looming humanitarian crisis, the International Red Cross warned today.

TONY Blair, a major player on the world stage for a decade, won global praise yesterday for defending Kosovo, fighting poverty in Africa and overseeing peace in Northern Ireland — but came under heavy criticism for championing the US push into Iraq.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry has charged 57 employees, including a police general, with human rights abuses over the alleged torture of hundreds of detainees at a prison in eastern Baghdad, a ministry spokesman said today.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny today refused to clearly state if he would block US military planes from using Shannon Airport if elected taoiseach.

A 56-year-old Kurdish-American woman told of seeing people sickened and dying during an alleged chemical attack carried out by Saddam Hussein’s forces, as the genocide trial of the ex-president resumed today.

A 56-year-old Kurdish woman told of seeing people sickened and dying during an alleged chemical attack carried out by Saddam Hussein’s forces, as the genocide trial of the ex-president resumed in Baghdad today after nearly a three-week break.

Anti-war campaigners are planning to mount a protest in Dublin today as the brother of US President George W Bush gives a speech to American businesspeople in Ireland.

A British soldier was killed today in an explosion in southern Iraq – the 100th to die since the 2003 invasion – Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.

The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, who was forced into months of exile by Iraqi forces overrunning his oil-rich Gulf state in 1990 and then supported the US in invading Iraq more than a decade later, died today.

US President George Bush, in the most forceful defence yet of his Iraq war policy, accused critics yesterday of trying to rewrite history and charged that they’re undercutting America’s forces on the front lines.

The Dutch foreign minister said today that, in retrospect, the decision to go to war in Iraq may have been wrong.

US President George Bush will today embark on a round of speeches aiming to shore up fading support for the Iraq war.

In his final report, the CIA’s top weapons inspector in Iraq said yesterday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has “gone as far as feasible” and has found nothing, closing an investigation into the purported programmes of Saddam Hussein that were used to justify the 2003 invasion.

An Iraqi militant group has claimed responsibility today for bringing down an RAF Hercules transport plane, killing at least nine troops.

Suicide attackers carried out a string of car bombings against Iraqi policemen in Baghdad and Kurdish militiamen in the north, killing 14 people and wounding at least 59 today in the latest major assaults on Iraqi security forces and U.S. allies in the country.

US intelligence agencies fell victim to false “group think” when assessing Iraq’s weapons capabilities and ended up giving the Bush administration overstated or incorrect conclusions before the 2003 invasion, a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report says.