A former Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has said there was "no desire" in the Army to invade Iraq in the run-up to the war.

Gen Dannatt told the Iraq Inquiry the Army had been asked about its attitude towards a possible invasion and said the chiefs of staff had considered how it might be involved.

He said they had discussed a peacekeeping role but: "Though there may have been a little bit of professional feeling that we should be doing this, there was no desire to do it.

"There was no 'we would be happy to do it', and there certainly was a large element of 'we're very busy anyway, so this would be difficult if we had to do it'."

Gen Dannatt was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 until August last year.

In October 2006 he called for British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq "some time soon" because their presence was "exacerbating the security problems".

And documents declassified today reveal he told the Chief of the Defence Staff in January 2007 it was "imperative" to withdraw troops from the country and rebalance the military resources in favour of Afghanistan.