Blix Criticizes Blair over Iraq Dossier

At a time when the British government continues to dodge the flak in the House of Commons amid allegations that Tony Blair and his cabinet misled parliament over the Iraq war, former chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix has added his voice to the criticism.

Commenting on the Labor Party-led government’s claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes, Blix told the British weekly The Independent on Sunday that the prime minister had made 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," Blix said. "It seems to me highly unlikely that there were any means of delivering biological or chemical weapons within 45 minutes.”

Blair was "strongly convinced"

Blix said Prime Minister Blair had told him on several occasions he was "strongly convinced" of the existence of weapons of mass destruction. "In fact, I was the one who was skeptical and critical, and said that I didn't think that the evidence was so strong, and said so to the Security Council," Blix said.

During his visit to Britain, Blix has conducted a number of interviews with the media and has reiterated on every occasion that, in his opinion, Tony Blair over-interpreted the intelligence Britain had.

Speaking on the BBC’s current affairs program Panorama on Sunday night, Blix said it was a "serious matter" when the basis of the case for war "sort of crumbles, or becomes shaky at least."

When pressed on the question of whether he believed the United States and Britain were determined to go to war and read the intelligence they had compiled accordingly, Blix said: "I think there was an element of that ... the main justification after all, which we were told, and the American people were told, and United Nations were told, was weapons of mass destruction."

Three months after the main conflict ended, no concrete evidence has been uncovered that Iraq was in possession of operational biological, chemical and nuclear material in contravention of UN resolution 1441.

Mounting pressure

The lack of proof and the alleged “sexed up” dossier that was used to convince the British parliament of the justification for war has ratcheted up the pressure on both Blair’s government and the Bush administration.

Blix admitted that the absence of solid evidence was disturbing but added that he expected the search for weapons of mass destruction to eventually show results. "There is a lot of frenzy about some of the detail at the moment and I don't feel comfortable with the fact that no more than was discovered early on of additional evidence of weapons of mass destruction has been uncovered yet, but I believe it will because I believe it is there."

The round of interviews with the former head of the United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) will not be welcomed by Blair. The prime minister is already facing sustained examination by a cross-party committee of members of parliament which continues to sift through testimonies and paperwork in an attempt to discover the true basis behind the government’s case for war.

Britains feel misled

The ongoing inquiry is doing little to boost Blair’s image at home. An opinion poll published in the British daily tabloid The Mirror on Monday showed that the majority of Britons thought Blair had misled the country over Iraq. The survey found that 66 percent of those asked believed the prime minister misled them, either knowingly or unknowingly, over the facts before he sent British troops into action.

Only 29 percent of voters said Blair did not mislead the country -- only slightly more than the 27 percent who said he knowingly gave them false information. The rest thought he did not mean to mislead them, but did. However, almost half of the 1,012 adults questioned still said Blair was justified in going to war.

Uranium storm awaits Blair

Things are likely to get worse for Blair before they get better. He travels to Washington on Thursday into the eye of another related storm -- the row over whether Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger. The claim, used as evidence by both the U.S. and Britain in their cases for military action against Iraq, was later revealed by the CIA as coming from forged documents.

Despite National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice defending the controversial claim, saying it was substantiated by several sources, CIA chief George Tenet has admitted his organisation was wrong to let President George W Bush include the information in January’s State of the Union address. The CIA Director has said that the claims did not satisfy the level of certainty required for presidential speeches.