Britain: Calls for a full inquiry into Britain's decision to go to war in Iraq were renewed yesterday after former foreign secretary Mr Robin Cook claimed that Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair did not believe his own warnings about the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Downing Street dismissed Mr Cook's allegations, serialised in the Sunday Times. It was "absurd" to suggest that Mr Blair did not believe Iraq had WMD, said a spokesman.
In extracts from a diary he kept in the run-up to war, Mr Cook claimed that Mr Blair "assented" when he suggested that Saddam had no WMD capable of being deployed against large targets such as cities over a long distance.
Mr Cook, who quit the Cabinet on the eve of war, said his impression in the fortnight before war broke out on March 20th was that Mr Blair no longer believed his claim that WMD could be deployed within 45 minutes.
Mr Blair appeared determined to join US President George Bush in invading Iraq, regardless of the progress made by Dr Hans Blix and his UN weapons inspectors, said Mr Cook.
His failure to inform Parliament of his thinking meant MPs had voted for war on a "false prospectus".
Anti-war campaigners said the revelations added weight to their calls for an inquiry, particularly in the light of the failure so far of the Iraq Survey Group to find illicit weapons.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Mr Menzies Campbell said: "Two things are now urgently required. We need to see the whole of the Attorney-General's opinion, and the facts upon which it based. And we need an inquiry, headed by a judge, to look into the question of whether we went to war on a flawed prospectus, either because of inadequate intelligence or the mishandling of intelligence once obtained."
Labour backbencher Mr Jeremy Corbyn said he expected demands for an inquiry to be voiced in the Commons when Parliament returns next week.