Lieutenant General Sir Anthony Pigott, who was deputy chief of the defence staff (commitments), said that by taking on a “meaty” role the UK was able to show the Americans it was a “serious player”.

Following Prime Minister Tony Blair’s meeting with George Bush at the US president’s Texas ranch in April 2002, General Pigott said he set up a small team to look at the options for military action against Iraq.

He said initially the focus was on getting Iraq President Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction rather than “regime change” in Baghdad.

“The intent I was picking up from HMG (Her Majesty’s Government) Ltd – not the Americans, HMG Ltd – was WMD (weapons of mass destruction),” he said.

Early on, however, he said it became clear that if it came to military action, Britain would want to play a major part

in the operation and not just a “parking role”.

He said that by being prepared to commit a significant force to the operation, it would “enhance no end” Britain’s standing with the US military.

“You buy that on your contribution and your willingness to put – not just boots on the ground – people in danger,” he said. “They know you are a serious player.”

General Pigott was critical of the speed with which the Americans declared victory after the triumphant fall of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad in April 2003.

“Nobody had won anything when the statue came down,” he said. “I tried hard – don’t play too much on ‘shock and awe’ and ‘we did it’ and ‘gotcha’ and all those media cries that became part of the campaign. If you look at those media cries they don’t add up to a sensible strategy.”

He dismissed the efforts at reconstruction invasion as “sticky tape stuff”.

Major General David Wilson, the senior British military adviser at US Central Command in Florida where the invasion was planned, said the UK had pressed for reassurances that preparations were in place for

the post-war effort but found there was no “entirely satisfactory answer”.

Dominic Asquith, director for Iraq at the Foreign Office from 2004 to 2006 before becoming ambassador to Baghdad during 2006 to 2007, said the Treasury refused to release extra funding for reconstruction projects in Basra, where British forces were based.

“The direction was that this was a high priority but we weren’t being given the extra resources to deliver,” he said.

“It was left to Whitehall departments to put the case to the Treasury for resources to cover this, to which the answer was ‘There are no resources’.”

The inquiry resumes on Monday.