The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
July 28, 2010

Hans Blix: US Refused to Accept Findings of UN Inspectors in Iraq
-----------------------------------------------------------------



Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix testified before the British war
inquiry on Tuesday and repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for
using "absurd" arguments to justify the invasion. Blix also described
Britain as “a prisoner on the American train.” Blix said weapons
inspectors were convinced that Iraq had no nuclear infrastructure, but
the United States refused to accept their findings.

Hans Blix: "So, on that area at the IAEA, both I in 1997 and Mohamed El
Baradei in 1998, said that we did not think that they could resurrect a
nuclear program within a very long time. But we could not guarantee that
there were not minor items like prototypes of centrifuges or computer
programs, etc. So we wanted to write off the nuclear program. But, of
course, it was not for us, it was for the Security Council. And I have
seen from some testimony here that I think the UK also wanted to close
the nuclear dossier, but the US refused, which we noticed at the time."



.