'War inquiry no longer needed'

Robin Cook resigned in protest at the prospect of war

Former cabinet minister Robin Cook has said there is no longer anything to be gained from a judicial inquiry into the decision to go to war with Iraq.

But Mr Cook said that if his call for such an inquiry in May had been heeded the government scientist Dr David Kelly might not have died.

As a result of his death, the subsequent Hutton inquiry and the work of inspectors in Iraq most of the answers of a judicial inquiry were already known.

Mr Cook, who quit the cabinet on the eve of war, told BBC One's Breakfast with Frost: "We know Saddam was not a threat, we know there were no weapons of mass destruction. We also know tragically we were not prepared to know what to do next when we went in."

But he told the programme that an inquiry in May "would have been very useful... because then we could possibly have spared the tragedy of David Kelly's suicide and we wouldn't have needed the Hutton Inquiry.

"But I am not sure now a judicial inquiry would tell us any more than we already know."

Dr Kelly died, apparently taking his own life, shortly after he was named as the government's suspected source for a BBC report claiming Downing Street had "sexed up" the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Weapons beliefs

Mr Cook, whose diary of the lead-up to war is published this week, said he was astonished the coalition had not been better prepared for the aftermath of war.

He criticised Tony Blair's "evangelical" belief in the military action - stressing that rather not believing what he was saying, the prime minister probably believed it "too passionately".

"I rather wish he had listened to the many people in Britain who were sceptical of that case and if he had taken that more sceptical approach the public out there would know now that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction through the weapons inspectors without the need for war and the 10,000 who were killed in that war," said the former foreign secretary.

In extracts from the diary Mr Cook claimed that Mr Blair had not disagreed when he suggested that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction capable of being deployed over a long distance.

Mr Cook also said his impression in the fortnight before war began in March was that Mr Blair no longer believed any weapons of mass destruction could be deployed within 45 minutes.

However Mr Cook stressed that he did not believe the prime minister had misled the House of Commons.

Mr Cook's latest comments came after fresh calls from former minister Glenda Jackson for Mr Blair to resign.

Mr Blair's judgment over the Iraq war had been "fatally flawed" and that poor judgment had spread to other controversial policies such as foundation hospitals and student top-up fees, she told GMTV's the Sunday Programme.