London — A key minister in Tony Blair's cabinet has quit over the British Prime Minister's march to war in Iraq.
Robin Cook, the government's House Leader and a former foreign secretary, was seen arriving at No.10 Downing Street around 4 p.m. local time for an emergency cabinet meeting, and then leaving just minutes later.
Official word came shortly afterward that he had met with Mr. Blair and resigned.
Another minister, Clare Short, who had threatened to quit as well from her cabinet post of international development secretary, said she was mulling her personal future overnight.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott reported following the emergency cabinet meeting that diplomatic efforts to produce a compromise at the UN had broken down, blaming "French intransigence" and "Iraqi non-compliance" for the failure.
Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Mr. Prescott said there were only two options left for Iraq President Saddam Hussein. "Either Saddam goes into exile or he is to be disarmed by force."
Mr. Prescott said the House of Commons will be asked Tuesday to back authorizing military action, with the debate to be led off by Mr. Blair.
The Deputy Prime Minister repeatedly blamed France for the failure, saying that the government believed it could resolve the crisis peacefully "but once France made clear they could veto a new resolution whatever the circumstances, it became impossible to move forward."
There is widespread opposition in the Labour Party to Mr. Blair's pro-U.S. stand on an attack on Iraq.
Mr. Cook's resignation came out shortly after Britain and the United States abandoned their efforts at the United Nations to get approval for military action.
Mr. Cook was foreign secretary in Mr. Blair's first government in 1997, but was replaced by Jack Straw in 2001. He was expected to lead opposition to the war in Commons debate over the next few days.
Mr. Blair faces a major revolt within his governing Labour party over his decision to back U.S. President George W. Bush in using force to remove Mr. Hussein.
Scores of Mr. Blair's own MPs have promised to vote against him if he proposes in the House of Commons going to war against Iraq without the backing of the United Nations.
Ms. Short had previously said she would resign from cabinet if Britain declared war without UN sanction. And she described Mr. Blair as a man who was risking world stability, his own government and his political future.
"I'm afraid that I think the whole atmosphere of the current situation is deeply reckless — reckless for the world, reckless for the undermining of the UN in this disorderly world ... reckless with our government, reckless with his own future, position and place in history," she said.
In the short term, Mr. Blair's position is widely regarded as safe, but his popularity is slipping in the polls and there are fears that if war against Iraq wasn't successful, his leadership would be in peril.
The tabloid Daily Mirror, a traditional Labour Party backer, published a photograph of a satanic-looking Mr. Blair on Friday with the headline "Prime Monster?" plastered across his forehead.
"Drag us into this war without the UN, Tony, and that's how history will judge you," the paper warned. "For God's sake, man, don't do it."
And many of his old critics in the party have upped the rhetoric over what they see as his blind support for U.S. President George W. Bush's administration.
"He is roving ambassador to the right-wing, born-again, Bible-belting fundamentalist crew which first turned Texas into the toxic execution chamber of the western world," Labour MP George Galloway wrote in the latest issue of The Spectator magazine.
With a report from Canadian Press
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