Blix said Saddam never cooperated. Blix did NOT give Saddam a clean bill of health. After all, the guy had killed thousands with WMD's I'm not disputing whether he killed thousands with WMD,,,,,, The point is he had none when Bush invaded,,,,
Hans Blix at the Iraq war inquiry - live
Live coverage as the UN's former chief weapons inspector gives evidence to the Chilcot panel
Hélène Mulholland
Tue 27 Jul 2010 08.55 EDT
5.25pm: That's the end of the grilling. Blix appeared relaxed throughout. Key points from this afternoon:
He denied claims made in media reports that Tony Blair tried to force him to change his mind on the absence of weapons of mass destruction, to placate the US
• Blix said it was ironic that Jack Straw was so surprised by his report to the security council in March 2003, since it presented nothing new and that in a verbal summary of the report Blix had been positive about progress. He said of Straw: "I don't think anyone else took it as sensational. It was reporting on concealment and obstruction in the 1990s, but not much more than that."
• He said it was odd that he UK and the US declared that Saddam was refusing to cooperate with the inspectors when his team was saying the opposite. "I thought it was, both then and in retrospect, a bit curious that precisely at the time when we were going upward in evidencing cooperation, at that very time the conclusion from the UK side and also from the US side was that, 'no, inspections are useless, they don't lead us anywhere'."
theguardian.com |
