"British Prime Minister Tony Blair privately admitted before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction that could be used within 45 minutes, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has claimed," CNN International reports. Cook resigned his government post in protest of British involvement in Iraq. The Sunday Times of London published excerpts of Cook's new book, "Point of Departure," based on his diaries kept during the run-up to war. Cook wrote in February that Blair "deliberately crafted a suggestive phrasing which in the minds of many views must have created an impression, and was designed to create the impression, that British troops were going to Iraq to fight a threat from al Qaeda."