"I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support."

This is a sad day.

The former British Foreign Minister and Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook collapsed today while hill walking (hiking) in North Scotland. He was pronounced dead upon reaching Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.

Robin Cook had an amazing career in British politics but is especially known for resigning his key leadership position in the British Labo(u)r government in March 2003 to protest against the war in Iraq.

Read Robin Cook's BBC obituary: Former Minister Robin Cook Dies

Read more of Robin Cook's resignation speech (March 2003)

This is self-explanatory (The New Yorker July 25, 2005) 

This is a very interesting article, though there are several things to take under advisement. First, this guy's first language is definitely not English and second, realize that burying airplanes is very different than burying WMDs...



A U.S. military search team examines a Cold War-era MiG-25R Foxbat B, the fastest combat aircraft today(*), that lay buried beneath the sands in Iraq. Several MiG-25s and Su-25 ground attack jets have been found buried at al-Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad.

Side-view of the Iraqi MiG-25RB (actually Soviet-controlled-- read the article)


By the way, Al-Taqqadum air field has been taken over by the US Army and they changed its name to (FOB) Camp Ridgeway from October 2003 to March 25, 2004, when it was renamed Camp Taqqadum since the US was desperate for political reasons to put an "Iraq face" on their presence.

* That the MiG-25RB is "the fastest combat aircraft today" is a lot more overblown than it might make you believe. First, reaching its top speeds would necessarily destroy the engines (making it a very expensive sprint). Second, even below its top speed, it was comparably difficult to maneuver, making it vulnerable to surface-to-air missile technology developed in the mid-1970s. Additionally, lots of other Soviet and other countries' aircraft were built for tasks other than combat that went faster than that. See this page for more details.