Serving and former senior civil servants have been called to give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office permanent secretary Sir Peter Ricketts (pictured) and Simon Webb, the Ministry of Defence’s policy director between 2001 and 2004, have been asked to attend the first day of public hearings on November 24.

Sir John Chilcot, a former permanent secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, leads the official inquiry into the Iraq war and is not expected to report until 2010 or 2011.

Also among the 20 witnesses announced yesterday is Sir Suma Chakrabarti, the current permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice, who was head of the Department for International Development (DfID) in the years before the war.

Ministers, including former prime minister Tony Blair, are to be summoned early in the new year.

In a statement, Sir John said the early hearings to take place this year would be used to establish a “reliable account” of UK government policy, transatlantic relations, intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and military planning between 2001 and 2003.