241 Pizza

The build-up to the invasion began in April 2002 when Blair travelled to George W Bush’s ranch in Texas. It was at this meeting that the possibility of invading Iraq in 2003 was first raised with Blair.

Over the next few months, Blair is understood to have backed the American plan but insisted on several conditions, including UN involvement and a push on the Middle East peace process. However, Seldon details how Blair’s negotiating position was quickly eroded.

Meyer told Seldon he had warned Downing Street officials that Britain was being “taken for granted” by the Americans.

The book notes: “Prior to the most important of his (Blair’s) frequent phone calls to Bush, in the run-up to the Iraq war and on other issues, pointed briefing notes would be prepared for Blair, urging him to tackle the president directly. ‘We’d then read the record of the conversation and see that Blair had gone off at a tangent,’ said one insider. ‘He just seemed oddly reluctant to confront Bush head-on.’”

Reports began to circulate round Whitehall that Blair did not read his briefs, and that he shied away from tough one-on-one encounters.

Seldon writes that during the autumn of 2002 British diplomats and politicians were involved in tense negotiations at the UN, but it seemed that Blair was being bounced into war. Dick Cheney, the vice-president, was hostile to Blair and the British and sat in meetings “like a lump”, according to one official present.

However, Blair was told by diplomats, thought to be Meyer and Greenstock, that he could have stopped America invading Iraq had he been prepared to use his influence.

“Advice Blair received from diplomats that autumn (in 2002) was that Britain could be the swing vote on whether or not the US would go to war.”

One crude remark assesses the scale of the political risk the prime minister took in backing the American invasion. Seldon quotes one close adviser telling Blair at the time: “Forget your contribution to public services. What you’ll be remembered for is winning two f****** great election victories and four wars.”

LEAKED DATA REVEAL REASONS FOR INCREASED BOMBING RAIDS WERE A SHAM

Figures released by the Ministry of Defence have shown the reasons given by Britain and America for stepping up bombing raids in Iraq in the run-up to war were a sham, writes Michael Smith.

Geoff Hoon, who was then defence secretary, and Donald Rumsfeld, his American counterpart, both claimed that the rise in air attacks was in response to Iraqi attempts to shoot down allied aircraft

However, the minutes of a meeting of Tony Blair’s war cabinet on July 23, 2003, leaked to The Sunday Times, record Hoon saying "the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime".

Ministers have since insisted that the stepped-up attacks, which began in May 2002, were as a result of increased Iraqi activity and were not an attempt to provoke a response that would give the allies an excuse for war.

The figures do not support those claims. In the first seven months of 2001 the allies recorded a total of 370 "provocations" by the Iraqis against allied aircraft. But in the seven months between October 2001 and May 2002 there were just 32.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, who obtained the MoD data in a Commons written answer, said it reinforced the need for an inquiry into ministers’ conduct in the run-up to war.

To read the leaked Iraq documents, visit www.timesonline.co.uk/downingstreetmemo

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