Robin Cook's diaries have become the latest in his armoury of WMD to fire at Tony Blair. But his claim that Blair let slip to him before the war that Saddam had no WMD to threaten the west is palpably absurd.

Assuming the diaries are a true, in context and contemporaneous account of such a conversations -- and some passages have a certain, how shall we put it, retrospective air about them -- Blair apparently told him that the battlefield WMD were so well hidden they couldn't be activated quickly. This seems to conflict with the now infamous claim in the government's September dossier that Iraq could activate some WMD in 45 minutes.

From this, Cook deduces there was no threat from strategic missiles; therefore no threat at all. So collapse of stout PM? Not at all. The logic is ridiculous. The 45 minute claim referred only to 'some' WMD. There is no suggestion that Saddam had no longish-range missiles; indeed, the assumption was that these could reach Cyprus. Conversely, there was never any suggestion ever that he had any missiles that could reach any further; and in any event, the central claim that the 45 minute bit was the clincher for war is simply untrue. As Cook himself acknowledges, it was barely mentioned by the Prime Minister. The threat, as Blair said repeatedly, came from the combination of Saddam's WMD programme and his terrorism. It also came from his regional threats, which if backed by WMD would have paralysed the west. It is simply astounding that a former Foreign Secretary can so misrepresent what was clearly a 'serious and current' threat. Cook is merely making political mischief.