Ex-British minister Cook wants troops to return home

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who resigned from the government in opposition to war with Iraq, has demanded that Britain&#146...

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Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who resigned from the government in opposition to war with Iraq, has demanded that Britain’s troops return from the battlefield.

‘‘I have already had my fill of this bloody and unjust war,’’ Cook wrote in the mass-circulation newspaper the Sunday Mirror.

His article was released in advance of publication.

‘‘I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed,’’ he said. Cook resigned on March 17 because he could not accept responsibility for British involvement in Iraq without international backing.

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Following his call for British troops to be withdrawn from the Iraq war, Cook came under heavy attack today.

Cook’s remarks drew fire from Foreign Office Junior Minister Mike O’Brien. ‘‘I don’t think this is the time to start telling our troops that they have got to withdraw, leave Saddam Hussein in place and leave his butchery to continue in Iraq,’’ O’Brien said today. Home secretary David Blunkett said in a BBC interview today that Cook was ‘‘mistaken’’ in his views, and appeared to question his loyalties, saying: ‘‘we have to ask everyone to answer the question ‘who do you wish to win’’’ the war.