BRITAIN and the US were at odds over whether to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein two years before the pair teamed up to invade Iraq in 2003, an inquiry has heard.

Former senior British military and government officials told the first public hearings of Britain's latest Iraq war inquiry that while talks were under way in the US in 2001 about regime change, the UK preferred to toughen up UN sanctions against Iraq in an attempt to control Saddam.

At the time, President George Bush had just come to power and both Britain and US were reviewing their Iraq policies because they were struggling to contain Saddam and his ambitions to develop weapons of mass destruction.