Check out this article by David Corn (April 5, 2006)of The Nation...

David Corn discusses a lesser-known passage in the recently disclosed "Manning Memo" of the 31 January 2003 Bush-Blair war discussion. It was George Bush's idea to have Silvio Berlusconi convince Vladimir Putin of the necessity of the Iraq war by lecturing him on free-market economics.

Copyright © 2006 David Corn - The Nation
[republished t PEJ News with permission of Agence Global]

It was January 31, 2003. George W. Bush was moving toward war in Iraq, and he was meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Oval Office to discuss various war-related matters.

Last week, The New York Times disclosed portions of a secret memo -- written by Blair's senior foreign policy adviser, David Manning -- that summarized what the two leaders covered at this session, which Manning also attended. Blair, according to the memo, wanted Bush to fight for a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein. Bush agreed to try for such a resolution, but he told Blair that the start date for the war, win or lose at the UN, would be March 10. Bush also proposed provoking a confrontation with Saddam's regime that would justify attacking Iraq.

The pair chatted about postwar Iraq, agreeing that sectarian violence was unlikely.

And according to a previously undisclosed portion of this memo -- a passage obtained by The Nation -- Bush and Blair discussed what to do about Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was opposed to a war in Iraq...

for remainder of article , click above.