'Allow UN into Iraq'

May 15 2003

By Evening Gazette

Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook today called on Britain and America to allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq. The failure of the coalition to find any trace of the "fabled" weapons of mass destruction in the five weeks since the fall of Baghdad threw serious doubt on Tony Blair's justification for the invasion of Iraq, said Mr Cook, who quit the Cabinet because of his opposition to war. If Saddam had possessed such weapons they would have been found by now, said Mr Cook. He said he was "shocked" by the coalition's apparent determination to sideline the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq and to exclude chief inspector Hans Blix's Unmovic team from the hunt for weapons programmes.