Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, is set to announce an inquiry into the reasons behind the UK's involvement in the US-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation.
A total of 179 British personnel have died serving in Iraq since March 2003
Brown is expected to announce the move, and whether the probe will be held in public, to the country's lower house of parliament at 1430 GMT on Monday.
The prime minister's official spokesman said: "The prime minister's statement will be on the end of the UK's military mission in Iraq and an inquiry into the conflict."
There has been increasing pressure from the public, opposition politicians and members of the ruling Labour party for an investigation into the war which was launched in March 2003.
'Whitehall stitch-up'
The inquiry is likely to examine the circumstances leading up to Britain's decision under Tony Blair, Brown's predecessor, to join the invasion and its aftermath.
David Miliband, the UK's foreign secretary, said in March that a probe would be held soon after almost all of Britain's 4,100 troops withdrew from Iraq by the agreed date of July 31.
Miliband has indicated that the inquiry would be held in private, but several politicians and some relatives of UK soldiers killed in Iraq have called for it to take place in public.
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In an interview with Britain's Observer newspaper, Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the country's second-largest opposition party, said: "If he [Brown] holds it all, or partly, in secret and kicks the eventual report into the long grass, it will be a betrayal of all those families who lost children serving in Iraq.
"They need answers, not another Whitehall stitch-up."
Rose Gentle, an anti-war campaigner whose soldier son Gordon died while serving in Iraq, said: "We already feel that we've been lied to by the government. We don't want any more lies."
The announcement is set to come as Brown strives to reassert his badly damaged authority over his own party.
A scandal over politicians' expenses and historically bad results in European and local elections have prompted a wave of ministerial resignations and calls for him to resign.
A total of 179 British military personnel have died since March 2003 while serving in Iraq.
Tags: UK PM Iraq war inquiry Gordon Brown