On January 31, 2003, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Washington D.C. “to tell [President] Bush that the British needed a second [UN] Security Council resolution citing the failure of Saddam to comply with demands that he disarm and explicitly authorizing military action. Bush, impatient, insisted that the first resolution, 1441, already sanctioned the use of force by stating that Iraq would face ‘serious consequences’ if Saddam failed to give up his weapons. But Blair needed the second resolution to assuage critics of the rush to war at home, and Bush begrudgingly agreed to help his ally.”
– Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 201