Blix accuses Blair of misrepresenting Iraq intelligence
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair misrepresented military intelligence to secure approval to invade Iraq in 2003, said the former Head of the UN inspection team, Hans Blix.
Blix noted that the intelligence gathered was not accurately represented by Blair adding Blair’s claims about WMD were “not supported by evidence.”
“Blair asserts that there were weapons, well that’s an assertion and it was not supported by evidence…They misrepresented what we did and they did so in order to get the authorization [for war] that they shouldn’t have had,” he said.
Blix went on saying that “at the time Blair said Saddam Hussein’s regime was in possession of stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and biological weapons, despite agency reports suggesting the country’s WMD capabilities were sporadic and patchy.”
Blix inspected Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) before the US-led invasion of the country.
Just three months before the invasion of Iraq, Blix told the UN Security council that some prohibited weapons were “unaccounted for,” but stressed “one must not jump to the conclusion that they exist.”
Earlier this week, Blair told CNN he had made “mistakes,” but would not apologize for the “fact the intelligence we received was wrong.”
“Even though [Saddam] had used chemical weapons extensively against his own people, against others, the program in the form that we thought it was did not exist in the way that we thought,” he said.
“Generally speaking, invasion and occupation of Iraq were totally not only ridiculous but also had huge sever consequences,” London-based analyst and the CEO and Founder of The Cordoba Foundation told Press TV’s UK Desk.
He also noted that “The UK government fabricated the documents on Iraq and paved the way for Iraq war and Tony Blair committed a crime in terms of putting the entire region in trouble,” he said.
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