Coalition ‘jumped to conclusions’ over WMD
After George Bush promised to ‘reveal the truth’ about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction yesterday, the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has attacked the coalition for ‘jumping to conclusions’ that Iraq posed a serious threat to world security.
He has said that before the war his team followed up on US and British leads at suspected sites across Iraq, but found nothing when they got there.
Speaking to the UN Security Council before his retirement this month, Mr Blix stated: ‘It is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted for.’
He said that following the fall of Saddam Hussein the conditions were right for the truth to come out about weapons; however his briefing recorded an open verdict.
Mr Blix did not name Britain and the US directly but left little doubt over who he had in mind when he said there was no evidence as yet that Saddam had continued with his banned weapons programme and voiced doubt about the quality of some of the intelligence information.
‘We received information about a site, giving the exact geographical coordinates, and when we got there we found nothing. Nothing on the ground. Nothing under the ground. Just desert,’ he told The Guardian.
The US has rejected the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq but has said it plans to widen the search itself.
