Blix made last-minute WMD plea to Blair

LONDON - Former UN arms inspector Hans Blix pleaded with Prime Minister Tony Blair for more time to find weapons of mass destruction before the US-led invasion of Iraq, says the Financial Times.

"I told Mr Blair that while I could not completely exclude the possibility of the existence of WMD, I was not impressed by the evidence so far," Blix told Friday's paper in an interview.

"Blair told me that all the intelligence agencies around the world agreed with the British and the US that there were. He was genuinely convinced."

Former top civil servant Lord Butler will deliver a report on Wednesday on the intelligence the UK government received about Saddam Hussein's weaponry, with British espionage likely to face criticism as well as possibly the Blair administration.

A notorious UK dossier from September 2002 said WMD could have been fired within 45 minutes of an order to do so. Yet over a year after Saddam was ousted, no such weapons have been found.

"We got an insight into how poor the intelligence was," Blix told the Financial Times. "We were being given what they were telling was the best they had and it was wrong."

Blix was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997 and later chief of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) until 2003.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq