The inquiry heard yet another Sir John today, Sir John Sawers, Tony Blair's ex-foreign policy adviser. Sir John, current head of MI6, told the inquiry that the UK and US had agreed at the beginning of 2001 that the policy of containment towards Iraq was not sustainable. He said that military action was not considered at that point, but there was talk of the risks to pilots patrolling the no-fly zones, and the effects of sanctions on the people of Iraq were discussed.

Sir John said, "There was no discussion of a military invasion or anything like that. That was not raised and not suggested. There was obviously a concern on the American side that they should retain the right to use military force if their planes were threatened or brought down or if the weapons controls exercised through the UN proved ineffective. But that was reserving the right to use force rather than any plan or threat to use force any greater than President Clinton's administration had used."

He told the inquiry that Blair and Bush discussed Iraq in February 2001 in their first meeting at Camp David, where Bush had called for a more "realistic" policy towards Iraq. He said that options for regime change were discussed, but were limited to measures such as indicting Saddam Hussein for war crimes and attempting to convince the Iraqi people of the benefits of change.

Sir John said the concern over Iraq was its continuing, rather than growing, threat. He said, "The concern was that measures we had in place to contain the threat were increasingly difficult to sustain."

According to Sir John, Blair approved a policy review paper calling for more focused sanctions, restricting sanctions to weapons and goods that could be used in programmes for developing weapons of mass destruction.

In 2003 Sir John became a special envoy to Iraq. He told the inquiry that he was not impressed with the senior US military personnel in charge.

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I was very disappointed by the quality of senior figures who were mainly retired Vietnam-era US generals - Sir John Sawers

He said there was a state of "serious disorder" when he arrived.

He went on to say that the key decisions on the new administrative and military structures in Iraq were taken by Washington in the weeks after the invasion, and was "pretty shocked" by the small number of UK staff on his arrival in Baghdad.

The inquiry has been adjourned until Monday.