A 2002 memo recently released as part of Hillary Clinton's trove of official State Department documents shows that former President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reached a deal to invade Iraq nearly a year before the war began.
The agreement included 1,700 British troops for the war that began on March 20, 2003, and toppled President Saddam Hussein,
according to The Mail.
Bush declared the Iraq invasion complete on April 15, 2003.
The memo was written on March 28, 2002, by Clinton's predecessor at the State Department, Gen. Colin Powell, and was most likely obtained by the former first lady for background purposes, according to the Mail.
Powell's document, written a week before the pair met at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, shows that Blair gave unbridled support to the war despite claims that he was seeking a diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis, the Mail reports.
Bush and Blair met on April 5-7 2002, 11 months before the war began.
"He [Blair] will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause," Powell wrote, adding that the prime minister has the skills to "make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace."
Both heads of state had accused Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction, with Blair arguing that the strongman could deploy biological weapons "within 45 minutes" as early as September 2002, the Mail reports.
Blair later traveled worldwide to try to seek support from the United Nations for the war, the Mail reports.
The UN did not support the United States and Britain in their invasion.
U.S. Special Forces captured Hussein in December 2003. He was later convicted and executed by Iraqi authorities in 2006.
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