LONDON (Reuters) - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Thursday attacked the "spin and hype" behind U.S. and British allegations of banned Iraqi weapons used to justify war against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Blix, who said this week he believed Iraq (news - web sites) had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago, told BBC radio that the United States and Britain "over-interpreted" intelligence about Baghdad's weapons programs.
In response, the British government said it stood by the case it had made to the public for going to war.
Blix compared London and Washington to medieval witch-hunters, saying they convinced themselves on the basis of evidence which was later discredited, including forged documents about alleged attempts to buy uranium for nuclear weapons.
"In the Middle Ages when people were convinced there were witches they certainly found them. This is a bit risky," said Blix, whose inspectors left Iraq on the eve of war in March after just a few months of inspections.
Blix said a pre-war British dossier on Iraqi weapons "leads the reader to conclusions that are a little further-reaching" than was the case.
"What in a way stands accused is the culture of spin, the culture of hyping.... Advertisers will advertise a refrigerator in terms that we don't quite believe in, but we expect governments to be more serious and have more credibility," he said.
"BEST ASSESSMENT"
Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s spokesman said a recent report on the September dossier by parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee had concluded that the dossier was "the best assessment of the intelligence available at the time."
That committee, however, also concluded that parts of intelligence were presented in a misleading way.
Allegations in the dossier that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons at 45 minutes' notice have come under scrutiny at a judicial inquiry, which has revealed that the claim referred only to short-range battlefield munitions, not long-range missiles as was widely believed.
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Bush and Blair have said the search will take time and that evidence will eventually be uncovered.
"The patience that they require for themselves now was not anything that they wanted to give to us," said Blix, whose inspectors were forced to pull out of Iraq in March after just three and a half months' work.
He said the few "minor things" which his teams had uncovered in Iraq were more likely to have been "debris from the past" than "tips of the iceberg" of an existing weapons program.
Blix's comments have been echoed by his successor Demetrius Perricos, who told Reuters it was becoming "more and more difficult to believe stocks (of WMD) were there" in Iraq.
The president of the United States decides to go to war against a nation led by a brutal dictator supported by one-party rule. That dictator has made war on his neighbors. The president decides this is a threat to the United States.
In his campaign for president he gives no indication of wanting to go to war. In fact, he decries the overextension of American military might and says other nations must do more. However, unbeknownst to the American public, the president's own Pentagon advisers have already cooked up a plan to go to war. All they are looking for is an excuse.
Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked information is fed to Congress and the American people. The president goes on national television to make the case for war, using as part of the rationale an incident that never happened. Congress buys the bait -- hook, line and sinker -- and passes a resolution giving the president the authority to use "all necessary means" to prosecute the war.
The war is started with an air and ground attack. Initially there is optimism. The president says we are winning. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense says we are winning. As a matter of fact, the secretary of defense promises the troops will be home soon. ...
... Military commanders are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and women who were told long ago they were going home. We are keeping American forces on the ground, where they have become sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East.
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance.
