Christopher Meyer told a committee of lawmakers that "the die was cast for war" before Blair met US President George W. Bush on January 31, 2003.

"By the time that Tony Blair came to the meeting I was saying that, absent of a coup in Iraq or (then Iraqi president) Saddam (Hussein) suddenly deciding to go off into exile to some inhospitable place like Minsk, the die was cast for war," he told the foreign affairs committee.

"And therefore the prime minister's main objective from that meeting should be that in time of war we went into battle in the best company possible which was another way of saying 'let's get a second resolution' (from the United Nations)."

Meyer also revealed that Blair had decided to back Bush whatever decision his US counterpart made -- although that was not a commitment to go to war.

"Blair had decided that the right thing to do was to be with the president of the United States whichever decision he chose to take ... to try to ensure he had the maximum influence possible," the ex-diplomat said.

In addition, Meyer, who left his Washington post in February 2003 shortly before the invasion started, said he was still not convinced the intelligence about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had been wrong.

"I am not convinced that somewhere, in a garage in Damascus or under a hill in Iran, there is some of the stuff that the intelligence picked up as being in Iraq," he said. "I think the verdict is not yet final."

Meyer, a key Blair aide in the run-up to the March 2003 war in Iraq, has been accused of breaking ministerial confidences by criticising senior politicians in a book of memoirs -- "DC Confidential" -- that he wrote.

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