Former defence secretary Geoff Hoon's testimony Tuesday kicked off appearances from a series of ex-cabinet ministers before the eagerly awaited questioning of former prime minister Tony Blair on January 29.

Hoon said Britain had always hoped diplomatic efforts to disarm Iraq through the United Nations would bear fruit and he doubted that Blair had ever given the United States "unconditional" support for military action.

Blair's influential spokesman at the time of the war, Alastair Campbell, told the inquiry last week that Blair had sent secret notes to then US president George W. Bush in the months before the March 2003 invasion.

Campbell said that while Blair was pressing Bush to seek a diplomatic solution, he indicated in his notes he would support military action if the UN route failed.

Hoon was asked whether he, as defence minister, would not have expected to have been consulted if Blair were writing notes committing Britain to military action.

"I would have been and that is why I do not believe he was ever unconditionally committing us to anything," Hoon said. "I think that right up until the vote in the House of Commons our attitude towards the use of force was always conditional."

Hoon was referring to the March 2003 vote in which British lawmakers backed the use of military force against Saddam Hussein's regime.

On Blair's talks with Bush at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, Hoon said he had not been briefed directly on what was said at the meeting.

Declassified letters released by the inquiry show that Peter Goldsmith, then attorney general -- the government's top legal advisor -- warned Hoon in April 2002 there were "considerable difficulties" in justifying military action.

But Hoon said that by March 7, 2003, shortly before the US-led invasion, Goldsmith was advising the government that an invasion would not be illegal. Goldsmith is due to give evidence on January 27, two days before Blair.

Hoon said he had believed Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) was "content" with the controversial claim in a government dossier used to make the case for war that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

David Kelly, an MoD weapons expert who believed he may have been the source of the 45-minute claim, later committed suicide. Officials had confirmed his name as the source to some journalists.

Hoon admitted he had not seen the 45 minute claim before it appeared in the draft dossier but, after seeking and receiving a satisfactory explanation from officials, thought little more of it.

He added he was unaware for months after the 2003 invasion why near-blanket press coverage of the 45 minute issue later became controversial until he saw a BBC documentary on it. Hoon said he was away at the time and had not seen newspaper headlines.

Hoon, defence minister from 1999 to 2005, identified mid-2002 as the period when it became clear that Washington "meant business" over Iraq, because the United States was deeply traumatised over the September 11, 2001 attacks and perceived Saddam as another threat.

It also emerged Tuesday that more than 3,000 members of the public had applied for seats to see Blair give evidence to the inquiry, including people from families of service personnel killed in the war.

The son of Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary in 2003, meanwhile launched a broadside over the government's handling of the run-up to the war as his father prepared to give evidence to the inquiry Thursday.

In an interview with the Evening Standard newspaper, Will Straw said: "I am especially deeply angry with Blair for being duplicitous about his reasons for taking us to war with Iraq."

He wrote later on his blog that the timing of the interview was the decision of the journalist who interviewed him.

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