LONDON, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair pressed ahead with invasion of Iraq despite that his cabinet colleagues had "severe moments of doubt" about it, his closest aide said in a diary book published on Monday.

    Blair's allies John Reid and John Prescott looked "physically sick" when the cabinet met before the House of Commons vote to endorse the war, Alastair Campbell, who was blair's chief media advisor, said in his book "The Blair Years" - extracts from his daily diaries.

    Reid, then Labor Party chairman, said "(we should) never underestimate the instincts for unity and understand that we will be judged by the Iraq that replaces Saddam's Iraq and by the Middle East", Campbell wrote.

    "All of us, I think, had had pretty severe moments of doubt but he hadn't really, or if he had he had hidden them even from us. Now there was no going back at all", he wrote.

    The publication of the 794-page book came less than two weeks after Blair left office. The book describes the former prime minister's political career from the run-up to New Labor's 1997 election victory to the invasion of Iraq.

    According to the Sky News, Campbell had ensured that the extracts selected for the book are not damaging to incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

    Brown told Sky News that he would not read the book, and Campbell said he was determined it would not provide a "goldmine" for Labor's opponents.

    "What I'm not going to do is publish a book that allows David Cameron to think he's got goldmine to use against Labor prime minister", Campbell said.

    Campbell is a former political editor of the Daily Mirror, and he became Blair's press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003.