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Saddam could have stopped war
17/06/2003 18:18 - (SA)
New York - Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said that even a last minute gesture by Saddam Hussein could have avoided the war with the United States that led to his downfall.
In an interview with AFP Blix - who stands down as head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) at the end of the month - said he believed US President George W Bush only decided at the last minute to order war.
Blix insisted that the war against Iraq, which started on March 20, was not "inevitable."
"I think if Saddam Hussein, even in the first week of March, had come up with a declaration that Iraq has no weapons and intended to co-operate, it would have made more impression," he said.
He added: "If Iraq had succeeded in resolving a few outstanding issues it might have created a new situation."
Many diplomats and analysts say that Washington had decided early in the year to invade Iraq no matter what happened with the mission of Blix's weapons inspectors, who returned to Iraq in November.
"I know that some French are convinced that by January there were a decision," he said. "I would like to see the evidence before I believe that. I don't think it was all done until the very end."
Blix has made outspoken comments in recent interviews about the US administration.
In an interview published by the London daily The Guardian last week, Blix said some members of the US administration had set out to undermine him, especially in the months leading up to the invasion.
"There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media," he said, adding: "Not that I cared very much."
Blix, a former foreign minister of Sweden, will stand down at the end of the month after more than three years as chair of Unmovic.
To the frustration of US Defence Department officials, Blix repeatedly provided cautious reports to the security council about the hunt for banned chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, noting that no evidence had been found that Iraq had resumed production.
- AFX
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