Britain's Chancellor Gordon Brown only gave his backing to the invasion of Iraq at the 11th hour, according to his former Cabinet colleague David Blunkett.
The Guardianand Daily Mail, which are serialising Mr Blunkett's memoirs, said that extracts to be published later this week would reveal the "chaos" and rows in Tony Blair's war cabinet.
According to the papers, Mr Blunkett's book, entitled My Life In The Bear Pit, reveals deep divisions within the Cabinet over the decision to go to war.
Ministers were said to have asked Mr Blair searching questions about the conflict and the lack of planning for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.
According to the papers, Mr Brown appeared to question the point of even attending war cabinet meetings, complaining that he learned more about what was going on from the media.
He finally only gave his support "at the 11th hour", the papers said. Mr Blunkett was said to be in despair over the behaviour of US President George Bush and his administration — a view he was said to share with other members of the Cabinet.
He was said to be particularly critical of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, complaining that he wielded too much influence during Mr Bush's first term in the White House.
The extracts published today concentrate on the events surrounding his resignation as Home Secretary in 2004 over the fast-tracking of a visa application for his then lover, publisher Kimberly Quinn.
In diaries, which he dictated into a tape recorder each night, Mr Blunkett vividly describes the anguish he felt after the affair became public and his career fell apart.
At one point he said: "Even I am beginning to doubt myself. I think I am going mad. I know the facts, but these are then widely presented as being completely untrue."
Later he added: "Virtually every day for the next 15 months was either a nightmare or an anticipated nightmare, with massive collateral damage to family and friends".
He described how, in the middle of the media storm, he was damaged by the publication of his biography by author Stephen Pollard which reported a series of highly critical remarks he had made about Cabinet colleagues. "I felt the whole world opening up beneath me. I recognised that this was a rapier, not a pinprick," he said.
"For the rest of my life, I will regret speaking to Stephen Pollard. It was the biggest mistake of my years in frontline politics." While some colleagues, such as Margaret Beckett and Charles Clarke, were forgiving, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was not.
"Everyone who cared for me said that they had never seen John Prescott look at me with such hatred and bitterness," he said.