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Tony Blair pledged his support for war a full year before the invasion.

In the memo, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell tells President George W. Bush that Mr Blair “will be with us should military operations be necessary”.

It was written in March 2002, a week before the notorious Crawford summit at the President’s ranch in Texas, at which the Prime Minister publicly stated he was still “considering all the options” and proposing military action.

The 2002 memo, sent to Mr Bush to prepare him for the Crawford summit, states that Mr Blair will use the meeting to present “the strategic, tactical, and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause”.

It also states: “Mr Blair may suggest ideas on how to make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace.”

Responding to the leak, former Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond said: “This memo is extremely damaging for Tony Blair and the net is now closing around the former Prime Minister.

“The Chilcot Inquiry has still to be published and these revelations need to be looked at very seriously.”

Conservative MP David Davis called the leaked memo “one of the most astonishing documents” he had ever read.

“It proves in explicit terms what many of us have believed all along: Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a front man for American foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or the British Cabinet,” he said.