North East families prepare for long-awaited Chilcot Report
Northallerton soldier Ben Hyde was killed in Iraq in 2003. His father John will be in London today for the publication of the report.
Families from our region are travelling down to London today for the publication of the long-awaited Chilcot Report into the Iraq war.
Thirteen years after British troops crossed into Iraq and seven years after the inquiry began work, Sir John Chilcot will deliver his verdict on the UK's most controversial military engagement of the post-war era.
Sir John had originally hoped it would be ready within two years of starting work in 2009, but it has since been hit by a series of delays.
The most serious has been bitter wrangling between the inquiry and the Cabinet Office over the de-classification of hundreds of official documents - most notably communications between Mr Blair and US president George W Bush.
With the final report running to 12 volumes plus summary with 2.6 million words, much of the focus will be on the section dealing with the decision to go to war.
No one wants to hear more about that particular section than John Hyde, father of Northerallerton's Lance Corporal Ben Hyde.
He was just 23 when he was shot by an angry mob in Al Majarr Al Kabir in Southern Iraq.
His father set up a memorial trust in his memory and will be spending today in London to hear Sir Chilcot's verdict.
John said: "I want to know why my son died, why all those guys died.
"You'll find most soldiers all they're concerned with is that they do their job right, but I'd like to know why.
"There were no plans at all in place, it just wasn't thought through at all.
"When Ben deployed he had no desert boots, he only had one plate instead of three plates for his body armour.
"I've got photographs of my son's company, some of them have desert combats, some have greens.
"They just weren't ready at all, they didn't have any sort of planning."