Secret U.S. Iraq pact

About two months prior to the invasion of IRAQ, the U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH told the British Prime Minister TONY BLAIR that America plans to launch a war against IRAQ regardless to the fact that the U.S. nuclear inspectors didn’t find the alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction he claimed in the run up to IRAQ WAR that the toppled President SADDAM HUSSEIN possessed, using that as a justification to launch the illegal and unprovoked war.

This is among other findings of a book by Philippe Sands, a human rights lawyer that was published Thursday.

In his book, Sands said that the discussion took place during a meeting between the two leaders at the White House on Jan. 31, 2003, citing a memo of the meeting as saying that BUSH also told BLAIR that the war on IRAQ was set to be launched on March 10, 2003, even regardless to any UN view.

In response to the book’s release, Downing Street said it refuses to comment on discussions that “may or may not have happened” between the two leaders.

All these are among other findings of the updated edition of Sands’ book Lawless World, which caused controversy when it was first released in 2005.

The book, the notes of which were prepared by one of the consultants, who participated in the meeting between the two leaders, also stated that Bush “thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups”.

The notes quoted BLAIR as saying that he was “solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm SADDAM”.

However, he wanted a second UN Security Council resolution as it would make it easier politically to deal with the Iraqi leader.

Also according to the notes, “the president is said to have told BLAIR the United States “was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over IRAQ. The aircraft would be painted in UN colors, so that if SADDAM fired on them, he would be in breach of U.N. resolutions,”, according to the notes.

BUSH also was quoted saying it was possible an Iraqi figure would defect and be able to give a “public presentation” of WMD.

They thought there was also “a small possibility that SADDAM would be assassinated,” the notes added.

The first release of the “Lawless World” by Mr. Sands, who works for the same law firm, Matrix Chambers, where Cherie Booth Blair, the British PM’s wife, practices, included revelations about the advice Britain’s attorney general gave the government on the legality of the WAR.