SundayTimes: Cook vindicated; Blair's Iraq war 'one of great catastrophes'

[Hissyspit]

The Sunday Times in UK has a commentary by the biographer
of Robin Cook, John Kampfner, talking about the politician's history and their relationship. I have highlighted what I think are the most interesting quotes:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1724514,00.html

- snip -

On the afternoon of March 17, 2003, a week before the invasion, Cook told Blair he was quitting the government. In spite of his fury and worry over the folly of the prime minister’s actions, Cook agreed to go with a minimum of fuss. He agreed to make his resignation speech that evening. Had he done so, as was his right, the following day at the start of the big parliamentary debate on the war, he could have brought the government down. Everyone in the Commons remembers his words: “Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term.”

Robin Cook was thoroughly vindicated. Blair’s war in Iraq, his fifth in six years, was one of the great catastrophes of post-second world war British and international politics. If the prime minister had listened more and disdained less a man of greater intellect, Britain might not be in the terrible predicament it is in today.

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