Iraq inquiry: what did Tony Blair write to George Bush?

If you are wondering why the Chilcot Inquiry might be interested in Tony Blair‘s letters to President Bush you get a flavour of it here, in Inquiry member Sir Roderick Lyne’s questioning of Alastair Campbell  in January last year:

Sir Roderic Lyne: “My final question is that in these interactions with the White House, presumably the Prime Minister wrote to President Bush from time to time.  Did you see that correspondence?”

Alastair Campbell: “Yes.”

RL: “Did he tell President Bush in writing during 2002 that he would support the President if he took military action?”

AC: “I would certainly say the tenor of the Prime Minister wrote quite a lot of notes to the President and I would say that the tenor of them was that, as I have said earlier, we share the analysis, we share the concern, we are absolutely with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed.

“If that can’t be done diplomatically and it has to be done militarily, Britain will be there. That would definitely be the tenor of his communications to the President.”

RL: “So without conditions?”

AC: “It is not a question of being without conditions, because if you are saying that along that route and
bear in mind, when it…”

RL: “Let’s not go all the way along the route.”

AC: “You have just asked me the question. If I can answer it: 12 years after the first resolution, six months after George Bush takes it to the United Nations, four months after 1441, I think it was pretty measured and I think the Prime Minister was, all the way through, trying to get it resolved without a single shot being fired.

“In the end, he is the guy at the top who has to make the judgments with all the advice that he gets about how best to do that, but that was his motivation right the way through. ”

One source who worked closely with Tony Blair in No. 10 said to me that if you didn’t start letters to the US President with the sentiment “we are with you” the President might not read on.

Did Tony Blair say that and more many months before Britain was formally committed to war and at a time when he was telling the British public and Parliament that no decisions had been made?