Cook quits Cabinet and urges MPs to oppose invasion
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Your support makes all the difference.Robin Cook launched a blistering attack on the Government's case for war and accused it of "diplomatic miscalculations" after he became the first cabinet member to resign over Iraq. He told the Commons he could not "defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic support", and proceeded to dismantle government policy in an electrifying resignation speech.
The former Leader of the House of Commons warned that "history will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations" that led to the collapse of the international coalition. He predicted that there would be thousands of civilian casualties if the Americans bombedIraq and he argued that Britain was acting in diplomatic isolation without the agreement of Nato, the European Union or the UN Security Council.
"We delude ourselves about the degree of international hostility to military action if we imagine that it is all the fault of President Chirac," he said.
He urged MPs to demonstrate Parliament's influence by voting with him to stop the commitment of British troops to a war without public backing or "international authority".
Mr Cook told the Prime Minister of his decision to resign minutes before the Cabinet met to discuss Iraq yesterday. He said in his resignation letter that "to create a precedent for unilateral military action" was wrong.
"Britain is not a superpower," he said. "Our interests are best protected, not by unilateral action, but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules."
Among those tipped as his replacement are Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip, and Jack Cunningham, the former minister for the cabinet office.
Last night Mr Cook said he did not believe that Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of that term, namely a credible device cap-able of being delivered against strategic city targets".
He attacked Washington which he said was "less interested in disarmament than in regime change in Iraq".
He also blamed Britain and America for supplying Iraq with anthrax agents and helping President Saddam build chemical and munitions factories. "Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capability that has been there for 20 years and which we helped to create?" he said.
The International Development Secretary Clare Short is staying in Government, it emerged today. Ms Short was due to issue a statement this morning confirming that she would not be resigning over Iraq. She warned Mr Blair on 9 March that she intended to resign over his "reckless" conduct on Iraq. But she has been impressed by a fresh Anglo-American commitment to put the UN in charge of any post-Saddam reconstruction.
However, Mr Blair was earlier hit by a second ministerial resignation ahead of today's crucial Commons debate, with Health Minister Lord Hunt announcing that he had decided to go.
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