Christopher Meyer, then Britain's ambassador to Washington, said Blair's line seemed to harden following talks at the Crawford ranch in April 2002, much of which were held in private with no advisors present.

He also detailed the warm personal relationship between the British prime minister and US president, saying Bush could talk to Blair but saw other world leaders as being "like creatures from outer space."

Blair was Bush's closest ally in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, carried out without UN Security Council approval. He resigned in 2007, partly due to the war's unpopularity.

The probe heard that toppling Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was not an early priority for Bush, but on the day of the September 11, 2001 attacks by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, the US raised questions about possible links to him.

Meyer, ambassador to the United States from 1997 to 2003, said he was "not entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood at the Crawford ranch."

But the day afterwards, Blair made a speech in which he publicly mentioned regime change for the first time.

"What he was trying to do was to draw the lessons of 9/11 and apply them to the situation in Iraq which led -- I think not inadvertently but deliberately -- to a conflation of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein," he said.

"When I heard that speech, I thought that this represents a tightening of the UK/US alliance".

Britain was still encouraging Washington to act with the approval of the UN Security Council, Meyer said.

The US position at this stage was a significant change from the Bush administration's early days, when Iraq was seen as being like a "grumbling appendix", the retired diplomat added.

While there were concerns over Saddam, there were initially no plans to take action, despite calls from US hardliners like Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he said.

This changed after September 11. On the day of the attacks, Meyer spoke to Condoleezza Rice, then US national security advisor.

"She said: 'There's no doubt it's an Al-Qaeda operation' but at the end of the conversation, she said: 'We're just looking to see whether there could possibly be any connection with Saddam Hussein," he told the inquiry.

The following weekend there was a "big ding dong" -- or dispute -- at Camp David, the US presidential retreat, when Wolfowitz "argued very strongly" for action against Iraq, according to Meyer.

But he added: "The decision taken that weekend was that the prime concern was with Al-Qaeda, it was with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and Iraq... had to be set aside for the time being."

There was, though, a "fault line" emerging between Secretary of State Colin Powell on one side and Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the other.

Talk of regime change in Iraq increased in the months before the Blair-Bush meeting at Crawford, Meyer said, adding that Britain's support was "taken for granted" by Washington.

Meanwhile, British attempts to get the US to focus more on post-war strategy in Iraq had little success.

Meyer said many US officials felt "it would be alright on the night", while Cheney told him invading forces would be met with "cheers and flowers" when they reached Baghdad.

The publication of Meyer's candid memoirs, "DC Confidential", in 2005 drew sharp criticism from some ministers and lawmakers who accused him of a lack of discretion, even though its release was approved by officials.

The inquiry, Britain's third related to the conflict, is looking at its role in Iraq between 2001 and 2009, when nearly all its troops withdrew.

Blair will give evidence in January and the committee will report by the end of 2010.

earlier related report
Iraq attacks kill seven, hit Christian sites
Baghdad (AFP) Nov 26, 2009 - A spate of attacks in Iraq killed seven people and struck a church and a convent on Thursday, with one bomb at a busy market claiming three lives as shoppers stocked up for a Muslim holiday.

Two home-made bombs exploded in the market in Mussayib, 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of the capital Baghdad, killing three men and wounding 28 people, including two women and two children.

The bombs struck at around 11:00 am (0800 GMT), police said, and came as food markets were bustling ahead of the first day of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice, on Friday.

Separately, a car bomb at a taxi and bus station in Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad, killed one man and wounded 10 people, police said.

Both towns lie in a confessionally mixed region dubbed the Triangle of Death because of the frequency of attacks during the worst of the insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.

In the town of Saadiyah, 125 kilometres (80 miles) northeast of Baghdad, a Kurdish politician was killed and one of his guards wounded when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb.

Abdul Rahim Agha Amir, the deputy director of the local office of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, was on his way home at the time of the attack, an official in Diyala province's security operations command said.

Thursday's sixth victim died when a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to his car exploded on a highway towards the east of the capital. A passenger was wounded.

In the south Baghdad neighbourhood of Saidiyah, a sticky bomb attached to a minibus killed one person and wounded three, police said.

In the main northern city of Mosul, a church and a convent were bombed, with both targets severely damaged but without any casualties, religious leaders said.

One of the attacks hit the St Theresa Convent of Dominican nuns in the western Jadida (New Mosul) district, the chief representative of the Dominican order in Iraq, Father Yousif Thomas Mirkis, said.

"These attacks are aimed at forcing Christians to leave the country," he told AFP, noting that the bomb had been placed inside the convent grounds and caused damage to the building.

Another bomb struck the Church of St. Ephrem in the same Mosul district, causing major damage to the Chaldean place of worship, Patriarchal Vicar George Basman said.

"We cannot pray there," he said, referring to the damage. "There were no casualties because it was a working day."

Last year, thousands of Christians fled Mosul in the face of violence that claimed the lives of 40 people from the community.

Since the US-led invasion, hundreds of Christians have been killed and several churches attacked.

A report this month by Human Rights Watch said minority groups in the north of the country, including Christians, have fallen victim to a struggle between Arabs and Kurds for control of several disputed districts.

Although violence nationwide has dropped dramatically compared to 18 months ago, attacks remain common in Mosul and in Baghdad.

A total of 410 people, including 343 civilians, were killed in violence last month.

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