A BEREAVED mother whose son was killed in Iraq has failed to be reassured about delays regarding the inquiry into the war after its chairman Sir John Chilcot insisted progress was being made.

Rose Gentle, from Pollok, Glasgow, said she would have felt more positive had he set a deadline for the publication of the report into the inquiry, which began six years ago.

However, no such date was mentioned in a letter he wrote to MPs to update them after they raised concerns about the length of time the work was taking.

Gentle’s son Gordon was killed aged 19 by a roadside bomb in Basra in June 2004 and she later became a fierce critic of the military campaign, which experts believe led to the ongoing instability across the Middle East.

She told The National: “I think Sir John Chilcot is simply stalling. If he was confident that progress was really being made he would have set a date when the report would be published and stick to it.

“The fact he didn’t do that says to me he doesn’t know and it could yet be years away. I don’t find his comments today reassuring. I think he was just under pressure to say something given all the criticism about how long it’s been taking.”

Gentle, who confronted former prime minister Tony Blair about the Iraq war, added that families of those killed in the conflict were close to giving up hope of seeing the long-awaited report into it published.

The inquiry was commissioned by the Labour government in 2009 to investigate the background to the UK involvement in the Iraq War, which began in 2003 when Blair was Labour prime minister. He gave evidence to the inquiry in 2010.

Yesterday it emerged that Chilcot had written to MPs on the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee to say the inquiry was making “significant progress”.

He said officials were continuing to work through the so-called “Maxwellisation” process of assessing responses from individuals facing possible criticism in the final report.

He played down a claim by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood that he had turned down repeated offers of assistance to speed up the publication.

In the letter, Chilcot said inquiry officials had had a “constructive discussion” about the additional assistance the inquiry would need in its final stages.

The continuing delays to the inquiry has caused exasperation among MPs, with David Cameron warning last month that he was “fast losing patience” over the lack of progress.

Chilcot said that while the Maxwellisation process had made “significant progress”, the responses from the individuals involved had to be properly evaluated before the work could be concluded.

“At that point I shall write to the Prime Minister with a timetable for completion and delivery of our report,” he said.

He added: “Those involved in the Maxwellisation process have engaged fully, and I continue to judge that no-one has taken an unreasonable length of time to respond given the range and complexity of the issues under consideration.”

Chilcot confirmed that he met Heywood earlier this month following an exchange of letters with the Prime Minister.

“Sir Jeremy and I had a constructive discussion about some steps that can be taken now to assist us in our work and the additional assistance the inquiry will wish to call upon in its closing stages,” he said.

Earlier this week, Sir Jeremy told the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that the inquiry had repeatedly been offered additional resources but they had always been turned down.

It had been expected that the report would be published soon after the General Election, but it emerged in April it was unlikely to be published this year.

The conflict began in 2003 and British forces lost 179 personnel, of whom 136 were killed in action.

By 31 August 2010, when the last US combat troops left, 4,421 US personnel had been killed, of whom 3,492 were killed in action. Almost 32,000 were wounded in action. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians also died as a result of sectarian killings and a violent insurgency.