ALEX Salmond last night warned the “net was closing around Tony Blair” after a leaked White House memo emerged suggesting the former PM was secretly supporting US moves to invade Iraq while publicly claiming he was seeking a diplomatic solution.

The SNP’s international affairs spokesman at Westminster said the contents of the briefing note – written a year before the House of Commons voted on military action – were “extremely damaging” to Blair.

He added it provided further evidence to claims made by Christopher Meyer, the former UK Ambassador to the United States, to the Chilcot inquiry into the war, that Blair’s prime focus at the time was on preparing for war.

“This memo is extremely damaging for Tony Blair and the net is now closing around the former Prime Minister,” said Salmond.

“The memo contradicts claims from Mr Blair that all that time he had been seeking diplomatic ways to avoid an invasion. It also adds weight to the evidence given by Christopher Meyer, the former UK Ambassador to the United States – to the Chilcot Inquiry – that the military timetable and preparation for invasion took precedence over any diplomacy and specifically over the timetable for the weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix.”

The former First Minister added: “The Chilcot Inquiry has still to be published and these revelations will need to be looked at very seriously. The inquiry was demanded because people wanted answers, yet six years and £10 million later we still have nothing – and the evidence against Mr Blair is piling up.”

Last night Rose Gentle, the mother of Scots soldier Gordon, 19, who was killed in Iraq in 2004, called for the memo to be included in the long-awaited Chilcot Report which is due to be published after a series of delays.

“It should definitely be included in the report,” she said.

“We are seeing that everything Tony Blair said at the time is being contradicted. He said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and it didn’t; he said he wanted diplomacy, and this memo says he supported military action. I hope the net is closing around him.”

The classified document was written by Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, for President George W Bush on March 28, 2002, ahead of the summit he hosted at his Crawford ranch in Texas for Blair.

In it, Powell tells Bush that Blair “will be with us” on military action, and assures him: “The UK will follow our lead.”

It says: “On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary. He is convinced on two points; the threat is real; and success against Saddam will yield more regional success.”

Powell also tells Bush that Blair would “present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause”.

The memo adds that Blair had the presentational skills to “make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace”.

The document was obtained by the Mail on Sunday and emerged after a court ruling in the US led to the publication of thousands of emails received by Hillary

Clinton on her private server when she was US Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013. Blair maintained at the time of the summit the two countries were not on an unstoppable path to war and has denied a claim the two leaders signed a deal “in blood” to embark on the war, which started in March 2003.

However, just a week before Blair’s meeting with Bush, his official spokesman said he was not “going to Texas to sign on the dotted line. He’s going to think through the options”.

A spokesman for Blair has said the memo is “consistent with what he was saying publicly at the time”. A further note written in April 2002 draws on information given to the US by a Labour MP, whose name is redacted.

Powell writes: “A sizeable number of his [Blair’s] MPs remain at present opposed to military action against Iraq ... some would favor shifting from a policy of containment of Iraq if they had recent (and publicly usable) proof that Iraq is developing WMD/missiles ... most seem to want some sort of UN endorsement for military action.” Considerable effort was made by the UK Government into compiling of a dossier which said Hussein possessed WMDs. The claims were later shown to be false.

A total of 179 British soldiers were killed in the war and it is estimated more than 120,000 Iraqi civilians lost their lives in the invasion.

Experts say the overthrow of the Iraqi president and lack of post-conflict planning contributed to a power vacuum which led to the rise of the extremist Daesh group.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell said the content of the memo did “not come as a surprise”.

“This is yet more confirmation, if any was needed, that Tony Blair in spite of what he said publicly and in the House of Commons at the time had made up his mind willy nilly to support George W Bush whatever the circumstances,” he said.

“I have no doubt that even at this stage the Chilcot Inquiry will regard this as a remarkable piece of information.”

The National View: Memo confirms Tony Blair’s foolish ambition was stronger than diplomacy