Senior British Official Resigns
By WARREN HOGE


LONDON, March 17 ? Prime Minister Tony Blair suffered the first political casualty of his hardline stance on Iraq today with the resignation from his cabinet of Robin Cook, the leader of the Commons and former foreign secretary.

Mr. Cook disclosed his decision to quit in a letter made public shortly before Mr. Blair held an emergency meeting of his cabinet to plot strategy to gain the public's backing for a war against Iraq. The British public is deeply skeptical over today's decision to call time on its diplomatic campaign and to join United States-led military intervention in Iraq.
Polls have shown a sizable majority of the British public and a significant minority of members of Parliament from Mr. Blair's Labor Party against the use of force without the approval of the United Nations, and Mr. Blair said he would take on his opponents on Tuesday by leading a debate in the House of Commons himself.
The cabinet met today after Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, announced in New York that the government had abandoned its futile effort to secure a new resolution authorizing war and decided to pursue the forced disarmament of Saddam Hussein with the United States.
After today's cabinet meeting, John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, read a statement over the shouts of protesters gathered at the gates of No. 10 Downing Street blaming French "intransigence" for the failure of diplomacy. He said that if the international community had stayed united, President Hussein could have been disarmed "without a shot being fired."
Mr. Blair and other British officials have been unsparing in their identification of France as the villain in the political impasse that has divided Europe and cost Mr. Blair the support of his own countrymen. "Nobody has tried harder than our government and our prime minister to resolve this diplomatically," Mr. Prescott said, "but once France made clear they could veto a new resolution, whatever the circumstances, it became impossible to move forward."
Mr. Blair's aggressively pro-American policy and his commitment of 45,000 British troops to the Iraq campaign have provoked the biggest crisis of his six-year-old premiership and nine-year tenure as leader of the Labor Party. He is in no immediate danger of losing either position, but his authority and stature at home and on the Continent have been badly damaged and could suffer far more if war plans go badly.
In a daylong debate in Parliament on Feb. 26, antiwar forces managed to attract 122 of the Labor party's 411 members to support a motion arguing that the case of military action was "as yet unproven." The numbers of mutinous Labor members should rise on Tuesday, though Mr. Blair is guaranteed a favorable overall vote since the Conservative Party and a probable majority of Labor legislators support his policy.
As government ministers worked the corridors of Parliament trying to persuade Labor dissidents to support Mr. Blair, the country's attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, released a statement countering claims that war on Iraq would be illegal under international law.
Lord Goldsmith argued that the authority to use force existed in resolutions dating back to the Gulf war of 1991 that demanded Iraqi disarmament as a condition for maintaining a ceasefire and specifically in the resolution of last November passed by all 15 members of the Security Council that held out the sanction of "serious consequences" for non-compliance.
Mr. Cook had signaled his intentions with tough questioning in a number of recent cabinet meetings, and his resignation was anticipated in the event Britain abandoned the diplomatic path.
"In principle, I believe it is wrong to embark on military action without broad international support," he said in his letter to Mr. Blair. "In practice, I believe it is against Britain's interest to create a precedent for unilateral military action."
He praised Mr. Blair for making "heroic efforts" to obtain United Nations approval of military action and added, "It is not your fault that those attempts have failed."
A stirring orator with a record of being a fierce debater in the House of Commons, Mr. Cook said he still supported Mr. Blair as prime minister, but he is nevertheless expected to become a leader of the antiwar forces, a group that has lacked a rallying spokesman.
Clare Short, the secretary for International Development, who had earlier threatened to resign if Britain went to war without United Nations sanction, emerged from the cabinet meeting with no comment. She was said to be "reflecting overnight" on her position.
Mr. Prescott said that Tuesday's debate would also focus on the "humanitarian effort that will be required to rebuild Iraq", a discussion that will cast Ms. Short and her department in a central role. Analysts tonight said that development might have persuaded her to stay on.
There are no other doubtful members of Mr. Blair's inner circle, though it is expected that a number of junior figures in government agencies will be stepping down in protest.
Mr. Prescott said that the cabinet had agreed on a finding that that the only way Saddam Hussein could avoid military action was to go into exile immediately.
The Foreign Office announced that it was reducing embassy staff to core levels in Israel and in Kuwait where the bulk of the British troops that have been deployed to the Persian Gulf are gathered.
Advising British nationals to leave the two countries, as well as the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, it cited the heightened risk of terrorism possibly involving chemical and biological materials as well as the threat of an Iraqi retaliatory attack.

NYTimes