IraqgateUK -Blix: Fundamental mistake over '45 minutes to deploy' claim

Hans Blix: Blair made a fundamental mistake over '45 minutes to deploy' claim

Independent -13 July 2003

The former UN official tells the 'IoS' he made clear to the Prime Minister that he was sceptical about the allegations on banned weapons.

Tony Blair made "a fundamental mistake" in claiming that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, says Hans Blix, former head of the United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq.

Asked whether he thought the Prime Minister was wrong about the "45-minute" claim, made in the Government's WMD dossier last September and repeated by the Prime Minister when he presented the document in the House of Commons, Dr Blix told The Independent on Sunday: "I think that was a fundamental mistake. I don't know exactly how they calculated this figure of 45 minutes in the dossier of September last year. That seems pretty far off the mark to me."

Dr Blix retired last month as head of Unmovic, the UN weapons inspectorate. His inspectors returned to Iraq last November after a four-year gap, but quit again in March with their task incomplete as American and British forces prepared to invade. The Swedish ex-diplomat is now chairman of an international fund building a new shield at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, scene of the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Interviewed at Chernobyl, Dr Blix said Mr Blair was "strongly convinced" about the existence of WMD. "I talked to him several times, and I never had any other impression. In fact, I was the one who was sceptical and critical, and said that I didn't think that the evidence was so strong, and said so to the Security Council."

Did he think the Prime Minister had relied on flawed intelligence, or misinterpreted what intelligence there was? "They overinterpreted the intelligence they had," the former Unmovic chief replied.

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