Extract from ‘January 2003 memo’, written by David Manning, Tony Blair’s diplomatic adviser, recording all the points made in the two-hour meeting held in the Oval Office on 31 January.

‘Mr. Bush was accompanied at the meeting by Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser; Dan Fried, a senior aide to Ms. Rice; and Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. Along with Mr. Manning, Mr. Blair was joined by two other senior aides: Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide and the author of the Downing Street memo.’

‘The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March’, wrote Manning, quoting the president. ‘This was when the bombing would begin.’
The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colours of the United Nations in the hope of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.
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Some senior British officials had been concerned that the United States was determined to invade Iraq, and that the ‘intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy’ by the Bush administration to fit its desire to go to war.
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At their meeting, Bush and Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found in Iraq in the coming weeks, the memo said. The president spoke as if an invasion was unavoidable. The two leaders discussed a timetable for the war, details of the military campaign and plans for the aftermath of the war.
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‘The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours,’ the memo says, attributing the idea to Bush. ‘If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.’

It also described the president as saying, ‘The US might be able to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD,’ referring to weapons of mass destruction.
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A brief clause in the memo refers to a third possibility, mentioned by Bush: a proposal to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The memo does not indicate how Mr Blair responded to the idea.
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If a second UN resolution failed, military action would follow.’
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‘the air campaign would probably last four days, during which some 1 500 targets would be hit. Great care would be taken to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Bush thought that the impact of the air onslaught would ensure the early collapse of Saddam’s regime. Given this military timetable, we needed to go for a second resolution as soon as possible. This probably meant after Blix’s next report to the Security Council in mid-February.’
The document concludes with Mr Manning still holding out a last-minute hope of inspectors finding weapons in Iraq or even Mr Hussein voluntarily leaving Iraq. However, Mr Manning wrote that he was concerned this could not be accomplished, given Mr Bush’s timeline for war.
‘This makes things very tight’, he wrote.
 

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