THE mother of a British soldier killed in the Iraq war yesterday called the continued delay in the publication of a report on the 2003 invasion “the biggest cover-up of our time.”

The Chilcot inquiry into the invasion opened five years ago but its findings are yet to be published, in part due to the refusal to allow the inquiry access to communications between then prime minister Tony Blair and US president George W Bush in the run-up to the decision to go to war.

But fears have long been expressed that the inquiry was effectively an Establishment whitewash.

Rose Gentle, from Glasgow, who lost her son Gordon in June 2004, told the Daily Mirror: “If they have nothing to hide, why won’t they publish the report? … It’s the biggest cover-up of our time.”

Reginald Keys, whose son Lance Corporal Thomas Richard Keys died in Basra, said he also believed that the report’s publication was being delayed to “cover up the truth.”

In October, Tory MP Keith Simpson said the delay “merely exaggerates suspicions” of an Establishment stitch-up.

But Minister for Civil Society Rob Wilson, during a Commons debate on the subject this year, claimed that the timing of the report’s publication was a “matter for the inquiry” which was fully independent of government.

The official website for the inquiry states: “The inquiry intends to submit its report to the Prime Minister as soon as possible.”