No war inquiry needed

On 19 October 2003, Sir David Frost interviewed the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook MP

Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

The former foreign secretary, Robin Cook MP

DAVID FROST: Well now, Robin Cook, in the headlines, often in the headlines but two or three weeks ago his book started being serialised, "The Point of Departure" in the Sunday Times.

And if we could start there, because the headlines, Robin, actually about what you accuse Tony Blair of, were much more, it was as if Blair had said something and in fact when one goes to the text, the sacred text page 312 "Tony did not try to argue me out of the view. I expressed that Saddam did not have real weapons of mass destruction, etc. etc."

But I mean, "did not try to argue me out of" is very different to "said vigorously" and the headlines, you were not responsible for the headlines, they said things more like "Blair says he knew in advance that they hadn't got these weapons", but in fact all you say is that he didn't try to argue me out of it.

And there's so many situations where people don't bother to argue because they say, oh it's Leo's bath time or, I don't want to go over all this again so I'll shut up and talk about it some other time. It's not game set and match in that did not try to argue me out of, is it?

ROBIN COOK: Well, David we would be very disappointed if we were to come on your programme and say we don't have time to do the argument. First of all on the question of weapons of mass destruction.

What I said in my resignation speech was that Saddam probably does not have weapons of mass destruction in the real sense that weapons would deliver of a long distance to take out a city population.

Of course we now do know, David, irrespective of what Tony said to me on that occasion, back in February. We now know from the evidence of the Hutton enquiry that the government didn't believe that, that they were never thinking about that.

They were talking about battlefield weapons, small calibre weapons which may have a chemical warhead. What was interesting about that conversation was the statement by the Prime Minister that even those weapons had been promptly taken apart and put in different parts of Iraq to be hidden from his weapons inspectors. Now, for me David ...

DAVID FROST: But you quote that as what you said and he didn't disagree with it. Rather than ...

ROBIN COOK: On the last point was something he actually said to me. But on the question of the weapons of mass destruction no he didn't argue with that and indeed we now know from the Hutton enquiry that's what he and others believed.

I was always very interested that the claims that were made in the September dossier were not repeated in the debate in March or in any of the ministerial statements in the run-up to war and I think that probably ministers came to recognise between September and March that they had got to..

DAVID FROST: Well now I was interested when you made that point. Because you were making it from your point of view but I would have thought the government could respond on that, you said should they have told the Commons before it voted for war, or was it on a false prospectus.

But as you just said there it wasn't actually on a false prospective because they left out the things that they maybe had doubts about suddenly. As you said, no ministers had claimed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ready to be fired in 45 minutes.

Or that he had rebuilt chemical weapons, or that he had sought uranium from Niger I mean so false prospectus. Labour dropped the things they were doubtful about and went ahead with the things they were sure about.

ROBIN COOK: First of all, David, on the question of the protocol. Yes, you are supposed to correct the records in parliament.

Secondly, if we had said to parliament, look we know Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction with which he could strike Britain or any other British base. We think he may have only battlefield chemical artillery shells, that's what we're talking about.

And even they will not be ready in 45 minutes. I'm not sure they would have got the vote that they did in parliament and when I talk about a false prospectus, I think the whole of Britain understands now that Saddam was not a threat.

We didn't attack Iraq because there was any imminent or serious immediate threat in his note to Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair said precisely that. We attacked Iraq because it was weak and because we knew he could not resist it.

DAVID FROST: Why, Robin, people are asking, didn't you say what you say now in your book, and they say in one of the reasons maybe the publishers said to do this, but in terms of the advance and so on. March 17th one day before the crucial vote, your eloquent speech in the House of Commons.

I hope that he (Blair) will continue to be the leader of our party, continue to be successful. I will give no comfort to those who want to seek and use this crisis to displace him, etc. etc. 17th June Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Was it hyped up I actually have no doubt about the good faith of the PM and others engaged in this exercise. There was no deceit and no invention.

And another one here - although some of the facts put to the House frequently turned out to be inaccurate, that does not mean to say that the Ministers at the time did not genuinely believe what they were saying. But now you're saying completely the opposite.

You're saying Blair did know in advance and that he should have said something about the fact that he knew that. And people say why didn't Robin say it on March 17th or June 17th, rather than wait for the book.

ROBIN COOK: First of all David, let's just get it clear. I didn't consult any publisher over what I said in my resignation speech. That was my speech and I did say in it Saddam probably has no weapons of mass destruction. He is weak, that is why we're attacking him.

On the question of good faith, actually I do repeat in the book and say it again that I have no doubt that at the time of the September dossier Tony Blair did believe the contents of that dossier.

But I think you've then got to ask the question, look, why were the government so keen to believe it and the reason is, David, they were desperate to believe it because they needed to believe that Saddam was a threat.

If they'd had taken a more sceptical stand, if they'd not been so evangelical about this certainty I think they could have seen that the intelligence before them was too thin to justify war.

DAVID FROST: So today, Robin, do you feel there's no doubt about the good faith of the Prime Minister, or did the Prime Minister mislead parliament?

ROBIN COOK: No, I'd never accuse the Prime Minister of misleading parliament or indeed of it not in believing in this case for war, it passionately believed in the case for war. I think perhaps too passionately.

I rather think he wished he had taken a rather more cautious and sceptical approach and listened perhaps to the many people in Britain of who there were a majority, who were sceptical of that case and if he had taken a sceptical approach you and I, the public out there, would know now that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction through the weapons inspectors discovering it without the need for war and the 10,000 who were killed in that war.

DAVID FROST: And what about the point about the Cabinet meeting, the 28th February 2002, when you spoke and you got a round of "hear hears" and you said it was the first time I can recall in five years, Tony was out on a limb, and so on. And yet you also said to, what, I think to the Foreign Affairs Committee, that you and Clare Short had really been the only dissenters in the Cabinet. Now, which was it?

ROBIN COOK: That meeting you were referring to was actually the first Thursday of March question the drift to war. That was, and I make the point in the book, that was the last meeting that the Cabinet, at which a number of members of the Cabinet raised very intelligent, sensible questions whether this was the sensible strategy. Thereafter, by and large we had many opportunities to discuss it in the Cabinet.

I would emphasise the need to stay in touch with United Nations. Clare would make a number of very intelligent sensible probing questions. But otherwise there was agreement round the Cabinet table and I would say this in fairness to Tony, he did give the Cabinet many opportunities to discuss the issue.

He never shrank from discussion round the Cabinet table if there was a failure in the Cabinet to assert itself it was not because the Prime Minister did not give the Cabinet that opportunity.

DAVID FROST: What about the people who say, however the operation turned out differently to the way it was advertised, that nevertheless it achieved the great objective, of expelling Saddam Hussein from power and don't you agree that the world is better off because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power and that the people of Iraq are better off now that Saddam Hussein is no longer around.

ROBIN COOK: Doubtless people in Iraq are better off. I think David that they could be a lot better off if we had prepared rather better for what we did next, we were astonished that we were not better prepared and better planned for what we did having conquered Iraq.

But on the question of removing Saddam, I'm in favour of humanitarian intervention. I believe that we should develop better rules on the basis that you can intervene on a humanitarian basis. But you know, if you're going to go into a country simply in order to change the government of that country, you need to have international authority to do it.

What happened here was that America and Britain acted without international authority, particularly without the authority of the United Nations and if you once allow that to become established as a principal of international relations, well we're back to where we were before the UN was formed in 1948, with the right of way

DAVID FROST: There was sanction for this in 1441.

ROBIN COOK: But I don't think you can seriously maintain that argument when they could not get the security counsel to agree to military action. And we ourselves said at the time of 1441 that this is not the last word. This is not the authority for military action. We'll come back again. When we went back we couldn't get a majority of the security counsel to agree with us.

Now, once you assert the right to carry out an invasion of another country to change its government without international authority, you are in a very dangerous position. Interestingly, Kofi Annan when he spoke to the General Assembly last month, he made this very point that this could create the precedent for unilateral lawless use of violence. Not just by us.

DAVID FROST: But you have to say that for our actions Saddam would still be in power with torture and all that went with it.

ROBIN COOK: Well it depends what we'd have done in the past six months. Do remember David, that those of us who voted against the war in March were not voting for no action, we were voting for the weapons inspectors to be given a chance to complete their job.

Now if they hadn't completed their job and had come back and said there are no weapons there would have been no case for war on the basis that was put to parliament.

But we could also then have taken further some of the other ideas that were around the United Nations, for instance, putting in alongside those weapons inspectors, human rights monitors to challenge the way in which Saddam ran his country.

DAVID FROST: And so, what now, I mean, do you believe now that there's been Hutton and so on. Do you still believe that there should be a major judicial enquiry into the conduct of the war and the leading up to it?

ROBIN COOK: Well my only problem with that question is the tense. I actually called for a judicial enquiry back in May ...

DAVID FROST: And do you still do so?

ROBIN COOK: Well now I think it would have been very useful if we had it then because then possibly have spared the tragedy of David Kelly's suicide and we wouldn't have needed the Hutton enquiry into that suicide.

DAVID FROST: But we have had the Hutton enquiry.

ROBIN COOK: To be honest, David, I'm not sure now that a judicial enquiry would tell us any more than we already know. 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.

That's all right then for public record. What I think is now important is not a further enquiry into what went wrong this week, and see where mistakes were made. What's important is that the government learns lessons from its mistakes and gives a clear signal that next time it'll behave differently.

DAVID FROST: You say in the book that the first term went well but the second term has been empty of achievement, really, and empty of ambitious achievement. That would be your summing up would it?

ROBIN COOK: I think the first term was very radical and achieved a lot of serious innovation. I fear, and I think it is true also of many Labour supporters, we've rather lost our way in the second term and become lost in the thickets of performance indicators, targets, measurements, and I think what's desperately needed now is that we return to a value basis of our politics to a certain, what kind of society is it we're trying to create, to give a vision to the country, in the way, not that I agreed with it, but Margaret Thatcher certainly presented a vision of the kind of society she was creating in her second term.

DAVID FROST: And do you envisage in the future, returning to a Blair Cabinet or a Brown Cabinet?

ROBIN COOK: Oh, I'm very happy now to have stood down the from front bench. I was on the Labour front bench for over 20 years in opposition and in government and indeed, John Prescott and I were the only two who could go back to the first ... Shadow Cabinet.

So I'm happy to be out of that now, David, I shall enjoy myself writing and reading and of course carrying out the privilege of back benchers which is to give unsolicited advice to those who are still on the front bench.

DAVID FROST: Whether they listen or not.

(news)

Robin, one other quote from the book. I believe that Tony Blair will always regard his period of office as flawed if he does not seal Britain's place in Europe by taking Britain into the Euro. Do you know that for sure?

ROBIN COOK: Oh yes, I mean Tony Blair is probably the most pro-European prime minister, certainly since the days of Edward Heath, and I will believe that he will regard his mission in government as not complete unless he gets Europe as the identity, as the destiny of Britain, and Britain back at the heart of Europe.

I do think Iraq, it's been a tragic diversion from that and we had the choice of being a leader in Europe or becoming a follower of Bush, we went for the wrong choice.

DAVID FROST: Well someone said the other day that you should be the next European Commissioner for this country, would you like that?

ROBIN COOK: Oh David, as I said, I'm very happy where I am. I would like to spend some more time writing. Yes I'm happy to serve if asked but I'm very content to pursue my future.

Having had all that time at the top and the pressure of constantly answering the phone in the middle of the night and wondering what you're going to get from the Today programme or the Frost programme. I could do with a little while at my desk writing, reading and thinking and speaking ...

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