A rchive Date
[ 07-06-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.N ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/06/06/105196-ap.html
Blix: Inspections could turn up WMDs
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH - Associated Press
Fri, June 6, 2003
LONDON (AP) -- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said he was surprised and disappointed at the low quality of British and U.S. intelligence given his teams in their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war.
Blix, in an interview Thursday with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, said U.N. inspectors found very little or nothing at the sites that intelligence sources recommended for inspection.
"We went to a great many sites that were given to us by intelligence, and only in three cases did we find anything -- and they did not relate to weapons of mass destruction," Blix told the BBC.
"That shook me a bit, I must say," he said. "I was impressed by that because we had been told that they would give the best intelligence they had, so I thought: 'My God, if this is the best intelligence they had and we find nothing, what about the rest?"'
Blix acknowledged that Iraq had not provided full cooperation, but said he believed more could have been achieved if U.N. inspectors had stayed longer.
"I was disappointed that we were not able to continue and I watch with keen interest to see if they find something," he said, referring to American and British troops in Iraq who have failed to find weapons of mass destruction after visiting more than 230 suspected sites during the past 11 weeks.
The lack of hard evidence has led to intense criticism of the British government and the Bush administration because Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of banned weapons was the main U.S. and British justification for invading Iraq.
Two parliamentary committees will probe the British government's use of intelligence following claims that Prime Minister Tony Blair's office redrafted an intelligence dossier to emphasize a claim Iraq could fire some weapons within 45 minutes of Saddam's giving an order to do so.
Blix also said Friday it was too soon to judge whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and it would be no surprise if coalition forces in Iraq found chemical or biological arms.
Blix's team found no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in 31/2 months of prewar inspections in Iraq.
Very little weapons-related material has been found in Iraq since 1994, and what was uncovered before then was largely material declared by Iraq or discovered at sites that Iraq had declared.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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