Another piece of an increasingly uglier puzzle

Things that your TV hasn't told you yet:

A memo of a two-hour meeting between Bush and Blair at the White
House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion of Iraq- reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a
second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned
Iraqi weapons programme.

The memo, written by Blair's then chief foreign adviser, David Manning reveals:

-The start date for the military campaign was "pencilled in" for 10 March. (Jon Stewart had a great joke on The Daily Show regarding this)

-Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

-Mr Bush even expressed the hope that a defector would be extracted from Iraq and give a "public presentation about Saddam's WMD". He is also said to have referred Mr Blair to a "small possibility" that Saddam would be "assassinated".

Read more here:

NYTimes

MediaMatters

BBC

Guardian