LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush’s public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was
inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on
Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair
of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second
resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find
unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting
written by Mr. Blair’s top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The
New York Times.

“Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military
planning,” David Manning, Mr. Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser at
the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr.
Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

“The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for
10 March,” Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. “This was
when the bombing would begin.”

The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the
American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding
unconventional weapons.

Although the United States and Britain aggressively sought a second
United Nations resolution against Iraq — which they failed to
obtain — the president said repeatedly that he did not believe he
needed it for an invasion.

Stamped “extremely sensitive,” the five-page memorandum, which was
circulated among a handful of Mr. Blair’s most senior aides, had not
been made public. Several highlights were first published in January in
the book “Lawless World,” which was written by a British lawyer and
international law professor, Philippe Sands. In early February, Channel
4 in London first broadcast several excerpts from the memo.

Since then, The New York Times has reviewed the five-page memo in
its entirety. While the president’s sentiments about invading Iraq were
known at the time, the previously unreported material offers an
unfiltered view of two leaders on the brink of war, yet supremely
confident.

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a
transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but
manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was “unlikely there would be
internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups.”
Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister
acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq.
Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned
invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a
confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States
surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of
drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

Those proposals were first reported last month in the British
press, but the memo does not make clear whether they reflected Mr.
Bush’s extemporaneous suggestions, or were elements of the government’s
plan.

Consistent Remarks

Two senior British officials confirmed the authenticity of the memo,
but declined to talk further about it, citing Britain’s Official
Secrets Act, which made it illegal to divulge classified information.
But one of them said, “In all of this discussion during the run-up to
the Iraq war, it is obvious that viewing a snapshot at a certain point
in time gives only a partial view of the decision-making process.”

On Sunday, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security
Council, said the president’s public comments were consistent with his
private remarks made to Mr. Blair. “While the use of force was a last
option, we recognized that it might be necessary and were planning
accordingly,” Mr. Jones said.

“The public record at the time, including numerous statements by the
President, makes clear that the administration was continuing to pursue
a diplomatic solution into 2003,” he said. “Saddam Hussein was given
every opportunity to comply, but he chose continued defiance, even
after being given one final opportunity to comply or face serious
consequences. Our public and private comments are fully consistent.”

The January 2003 memo is the latest in a series of secret memos
produced by top aides to Mr. Blair that summarize private discussions
between the president and the prime minister. Another group of British
memos, including the so-called Downing Street memo written in July
2002, showed that some senior British officials had been concerned that
the United States was determined to invade Iraq, and that the
“intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” by the Bush
administration to fit its desire to go to war.

The latest memo is striking in its characterization of frank,
almost casual, conversation by Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about the most
serious subjects. At one point, the leaders swapped ideas for a postwar
Iraqi government. “As for the future government of Iraq, people would
find it very odd if we handed it over to another dictator,” the prime
minister is quoted as saying.

“Bush agreed,” Mr. Manning wrote. This exchange, like most of the
quotations in this article, have not been previously reported.

Mr. Bush was accompanied at the meeting by Condoleezza Rice,
who was then the national security adviser; Dan Fried, a senior aide to
Ms. Rice; and Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. Along
with Mr. Manning, Mr. Blair was joined by two other senior aides:
Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Matthew Rycroft, a foreign
policy aide and the author of the Downing Street memo.

By late January 2003, United Nations inspectors had spent six weeks
in Iraq hunting for weapons under the auspices of Security Council
Resolution 1441, which authorized “serious consequences” if Iraq
voluntarily failed to disarm. Led by Hans Blix, the inspectors had reported little cooperation from Mr. Hussein, and no success finding any unconventional weapons.

At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their
doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found in
Iraq in the coming weeks, the memo said. The president spoke as if an
invasion was unavoidable. The two leaders discussed a timetable for the
war, details of the military campaign and plans for the aftermath of
the war.

Discussing Provocation

Without much elaboration, the memo also says the president raised
three possible ways of provoking a confrontation. Since they were first
reported last month, neither the White House nor the British government
has discussed them.

“The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with
fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours,” the memo says,
attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. “If Saddam fired on them, he would be
in breach.”

It also described the president as saying, “The U.S. might be able
to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about
Saddam’s W.M.D,” referring to weapons of mass destruction.

A brief clause in the memo refers to a third possibility, mentioned
by Mr. Bush, a proposal to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The memo does
not indicate how Mr. Blair responded to the idea.

Mr. Sands first reported the proposals in his book, although he did
not use any direct quotations from the memo. He is a professor of
international law at University College of London and the founding
member of the Matrix law office in London, where the prime minister’s
wife, Cherie Blair, is a partner.

Mr. Jones, the National Security Council spokesman, declined to
discuss the proposals, saying, “We are not going to get into discussing
private discussions of the two leaders.”

At several points during the meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair,
there was palpable tension over finding a legitimate legal trigger for
going to war that would be acceptable to other nations, the memo said.
The prime minister was quoted as saying it was essential for both
countries to lobby for a second United Nations resolution against Iraq,
because it would serve as “an insurance policy against the unexpected.”

The memo said Mr. Blair told Mr. Bush, “If anything went wrong with
the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning the
oil wells, killing children or fomenting internal divisions within
Iraq, a second resolution would give us international cover, especially
with the Arabs.”

Running Out of Time

Mr. Bush agreed that the two countries should attempt to get a
second resolution, but he added that time was running out. “The U.S.
would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and
would twist arms and even threaten,” Mr. Bush was paraphrased in the
memo as saying.

The document added, “But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military action would follow anyway.”

The leaders agreed that three weeks remained to obtain a second
United Nations Security Council resolution before military commanders
would need to begin preparing for an invasion.

Summarizing statements by the president, the memo says: “The air
campaign would probably last four days, during which some 1,500 targets
would be hit. Great care would be taken to avoid hitting innocent
civilians. Bush thought the impact of the air onslaught would ensure
the early collapse of Saddam’s regime. Given this military timetable,
we needed to go for a second resolution as soon as possible. This
probably meant after Blix’s next report to the Security Council in
mid-February.”

Mr. Blair was described as responding that both countries would make
clear that a second resolution amounted to “Saddam’s final
opportunity.” The memo described Mr. Blair as saying: “We had been very
patient. Now we should be saying that the crisis must be resolved in
weeks, not months.”

It reported: “Bush agreed. He commented that he was not itching to
go to war, but we could not allow Saddam to go on playing with us. At
some point, probably when we had passed the second resolutions —
assuming we did — we should warn Saddam that he had a week to
leave. We should notify the media too. We would then have a clear field
if Saddam refused to go.”

Mr. Bush devoted much of the meeting to outlining the military
strategy. The president, the memo says, said the planned air campaign
“would destroy Saddam’s command and control quickly.” It also said that
he expected Iraq’s army to “fold very quickly.” He also is reported as
telling the prime minister that the Republican Guard would be
“decimated by the bombing.”

Despite his optimism, Mr. Bush said he was aware that “there were
uncertainties and risks,” the memo says, and it goes on, “As far as
destroying the oil wells were concerned, the U.S. was well equipped to
repair them quickly, although this would be easier in the south of Iraq
than in the north.”

The two men briefly discussed plans for a post-Hussein Iraqi
government. “The prime minister asked about aftermath planning,” the
memo says. “Condi Rice said that a great deal of work was now in hand.

Referring to the Defense Department, it said: “A planning cell in
D.O.D. was looking at all aspects and would deploy to Iraq to direct
operations as soon as the military action was over. Bush said that a
great deal of detailed planning had been done on supplying the Iraqi
people with food and medicine.”

Planning for After the War

The leaders then looked beyond the war, imagining the transition
from Mr. Hussein’s rule to a new government. Immediately after the war,
a military occupation would be put in place for an unknown period of
time, the president was described as saying. He spoke of the “dilemma
of managing the transition to the civil administration,” the memo says.

The document concludes with Mr. Manning still holding out a
last-minute hope of inspectors finding weapons in Iraq, or even Mr.
Hussein voluntarily leaving Iraq. But Mr. Manning wrote that he was
concerned this could not be accomplished by Mr. Bush’s timeline for
war.

“This makes the timing very tight,” he wrote. “We therefore need to
stay closely alongside Blix, do all we can to help the inspectors make
a significant find, and work hard on the other members of the Security
Council to accept the noncooperation case so that we can secure the
minimum nine votes when we need them, probably the end of February.”

At a White House news conference following the closed-door session,
Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair said “the crisis” had to be resolved in a timely
manner. “Saddam Hussein is not disarming,” the president told
reporters. “He is a danger to the world. He must disarm. And that’s why
I have constantly said — and the prime minister has constantly
said — this issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not
months.”

Despite intense lobbying by the United States and Britain, a second
United Nations resolution was not obtained. The American-led military
coalition invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, nine days after the target
date set by the president on that late January day at the White House.