A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein.

The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.

The president expressed hopes that an Iraqi defector would be "brought out" to give a public presentation on Saddam's WMD or that someone might assassinate the Iraqi leader. However, Bush confirmed even without a second resolution, the US was prepared for military action. The memo said Blair told Bush he was "solidly with the president".

The five-page document, written by Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, and copied to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Lord Boyce, and the UK's ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, outlines how Bush told Blair he had decided on a start date for the war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/21/iraq-inquiry-tony-blair-bush

and then .....

On January 31, 2003, prior to the full-scale invasion of Iraq in March, President George W. Bush met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the White House. After their meeting, they spoke to the media (video) and claimed not to have decided on war, to be working hard to achieve peace, and to be worried about the imminent threat from Iraq to the American people. They claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to al Qaeda, and - Bush implied, but avoided explicitly stating - to the attacks of September 11, 2001. They also claimed to have UN authorization for launching an attack on Iraq. These were all blatant lies, as revealed in the White House Memo, which recorded what Bush and Blair had talked about behind closed doors just prior to the press conference. And yet, to my knowledge, not one of the reporters you see in the above video has made a peep about it.

http://www.truthout.org/062209T?n

and, of course .....

In secret messages passed via Britain's top civil servant Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell, Mr Blair feared he would become the accused in a show trial. Mr Brown's decision to hold the inquiry sparked outrage last week.

But Mr Blair is said to have told the Prime Minister he was worried about giving evidence on oath - and also feared revealing the truth about intelligence reports and secret conversations with US President George Bush.

Signing on to American plans to topple Saddam Hussein amid false claims that the Iraqi dictator was developing weapons of mass destruction was the most controversial decision of Mr Blair's time at Number 10.

Giving a full picture of what happened could mean Mr Blair revealing details he is planning to keep secret until his memoirs - for which he received £5million - are published.

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/109109