Official: Blair prepared for Iraq in 2002

LONDON, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Britain's former ambassador to the United States said war with Iraq seemed inevitable a year before the invasion.

Sir Christopher Meyer said former Prime Minister Tony Blair's view on regime change in Iraq "tightened" after a private meeting with then-U.S. President George W. Bush in April 2002, the BBC reported Thursday.

Meyer told an inquiry into Britain's role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq that British officials believed it would be "pointless" to resist the Bush administration's Iraq plans after the meeting at Bush's family ranch in Crawford, Texas.

The former ambassador, who left the United States in 2003, said Blair mentioned regime change for the first time in a speech the day after his meeting with Bush.

"When I heard that speech, I thought that this represents a tightening of the U.K.-U.S. alliance and a degree of convergence on the danger that Saddam Hussein presented," Meyer told the inquiry.