Guardian: Robin Cook on London explosions: our troops are part of the problem

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook writing in the Guardian Yesterday said "In the single week since the London bombings there have been 11 suicide attacks in Iraq. One car bomb this week wiped out 30 children, one as young as six, who had gathered to plead for western chocolates from American soldiers."

Cook wrote "I do not draw a parallel between London and Baghdad to diminish the pain and horror caused by the crime on our own shores, but because that appalling experience should give us some insight into the violence that is now a daily occurrence in Iraq. And as the occupying force we bear responsibility for its security. There may be room for debate over whether there is a connection between the war in Iraq and the London bombings, but there is no escaping the hard truth that the chaos in that country is a direct result of the decision to invade it, taken in defiance of the intelligence warning that it would heighten the terrorist threat. And still those who took us into the war are not frank with us."

Worth noting that, on June 2, 2003 British foreign minister Jack Straw said on the possibility of opening an independent investigation requested by the two former ministers Clair Short and Robin Cook who resigned in opposition of going to war against Iraq "I do not see any element justifying such an investigation." Straw at the time renewed that there is "authentic evidence" proving that Iraq had developed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. This was in an attempt to repel the accusations addressed to the British prime minister Tony Blair to that he had lied to the country by exaggerating the threats about the mass destruction weapons.