Bush–Blair 2003 Iraq memo

The memo purportedly shows at that point, the administrations of Bush and Blair had already decided that the invasion of Iraq would take place two months later.

The memo was written by Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, who participated in the meeting.

The memo has become controversial for its content, which includes discussing ways to provoke Saddam Hussein into a confrontation, with Bush floating the idea of painting a U-2 spyplane in United Nations (UN) colors and letting it fly low over Iraq to provoke Iraq into shooting it down, thus providing a pretext for the subsequent invasion.

Five pages long, and classified as extremely sensitive, the existence of the memo was first alleged by Philippe Sands in his book Lawless World (2005).

[2] UK Liberal Democrat party leader Menzies Campbell said, with regard to the memo: "If these allegations are accurate, the Prime Minister and President Bush were determined to go to war with or without a second UN resolution, and Britain was signed up to do so by the end of January 2003.