The review of intelligence used to justify Britain's participation in the US-led attack on Iraq has run into controversy within minutes of being announced.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw today announced the review will be chaired by ex-Cabinet Secretary Lord Butler and will consider intelligence on illegal weapons programmes and the global trade in weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
But the Liberal Democrat leader Mr Charles Kennedy has refused to send a party representative to join the inquiry team.
The party says the inquiry will not include examination of the political role in ordering the attack on Iraq and would therefore do nothing to restore public confidence.
"An inquiry which excludes politicians from scrutiny is unlikely to command public confidence," party foreign affairs spokesman Mr Menzies Campbell said.
The Prime Minister and government should be willing to submit to scrutiny of their "competence and judgment," he added.
Mr Straw said the committee would be made up of Sir John Chilcot, Field Marshal Lord Inge, Labour MP Ann Taylor and Tory MP Michael Mates.
The review committee will report to the Prime Minister and would look at "countries of concern" involved in WMD. He added that the committee, which would follow precedents set by the Franks inquiry into the Falklands conflict, would report before Parliament's summer recess in July.
Shadow foreign secretary Mr Michael Ancram welcomed the inquiry, saying Mr Blair had executed a "spectacular U-turn" in agreeing to it.