Why do the good ones die so soon?

Let us keep for reference Robin Cook's resignation speech. No spin, no lies, and he was right on every single count, long before a shot was fired in Iraq. This honesty and integrity can only be admired.
Some highlights:

It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution.

I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo[...] It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies.

For four years as foreign secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment.
Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes.

We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.
Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.

Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors?

it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply.

But he could not forsee that the Iraq war would be a total success...