Did Blair have doubts?

last updated 8 January 2015

London

A former Cabinet member said this week that British Prime Minister Tony Blair knew that Iraq did not have quickly deployable weapons of mass destruction, as his government claimed. Robin Cook, who quit his post as leader of the House of Commons in March because of his opposition to the war, has a new memoir out that was excerpted in the London Sunday Times this week. “The real reason [Blair] went to war,” Cook writes, “was that he found it easier to resist the public opinion of Britain than the request of the president of the United States.” Questions over whether the prime minister’s office “sexed up” its evidence of Saddam’s weapons have been a huge issue in Britain all summer. An independent inquiry into the matter will deliver a report late next month.