Tony Blair defied two of his closest aides in promising George Bush that the UK would back him "whatever" setting the country on an unstoppable path to war, a series of letters published by the Iraq Inquiry reveal.
They show the closeness of the two men, with Mr Blair praising the Republican president as "brilliant", and planning the war in secret for eight months before winning the backing of his Cabinet and Parliament.
Mr Blair told his counterpart that the goal was to create "the true post-Cold War world order". But the letters also show that just two months after sending British soldiers into battle, he had doubts. President Bush's replies are not in the report because the inquiry did not request them from the US.
Mr Blair wrote to President Bush on Sept 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks on America, setting out what he thought should happen, and giving an insight into his attitude to acting with or without international approval.
In a memo headed "Note for the President" and marked "secret and personal", Mr Blair said: "There are states and governments that either harbour or turn a blind eye to these groups. What sanctions and/or action do we take in respect of them?
"Some of this will require action that some will baulk at. But we are better to act now (underlined) and explain and justify our actions than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs."
Days after the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, Mr Blair was talking about Iraq. In a letter to "Dear George" he said: "There is a real willingness in the Middle East to get Saddam out but a total opposition to mixing this up with the current operation."
In November, the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee concluded that Iraq had played no role in 9/11 and that cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "unlikely".
But on Dec 4, in a letter headed "The war against terrorism: the second phase", Mr Blair was warning: "Iraq is a threat because it has WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capability [and] is acquiring more." But he added: "Any link to 11 September and AQ is at best very tenuous ??? so we need a strategy for regime change that builds over time."
After a now infamous meeting at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, Mr Blair wrote to George Bush setting out his latest thoughts. His six-page letter, dated July 28, 2002, was headed simply "Note on Iraq" and assured the president of unconditional support.
"I will be with you, whatever," it began. With six words, Mr Blair had set the UK on what proved to be an irreversible path to war.
Sir David Manning, the British ambassador to Washington, and Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair's chief of staff, tried to remove the words from the letter.
The report states: "Sir David had tried to take the first sentence out because it was 'too sweeping', it seemed to him to 'close off options' and he did not think that that was 'a sensible place to be'." Sir David told the inquiry: "I went to Jonathan and said 'The Prime Minister should not say this' and we went up
to the [Downing Street] flat.
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