Madrid: The invasion of Iraq was planned a long time in advance, and the United
States and Britain are not primarily concerned with finding any banned weapons of
mass destruction (WMD), chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said in an interview on
April 9.
"There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises
doubts about their attitude to the (weapons) inspections," Blix told Spanish
daily 'El Pais'.
"I now believe that finding weapons of mass destruction has been relegated, I would
say, to fourth place, which is why the United States and Britain are now waging war
on Iraq. Today, the main aim is to change the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein,"
he said, according to the Spanish text of the interview.
Blix said US President George W Bush had told him in October 2002 that he backed the
United Nations (UN)'s work to verify US and British claims that Baghdad was
developing biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
But he said he knew at the time "there were people within the Bush administration
who were sceptical and who were working on engineering regime change". By the start
of March, the hawks in both Washington and London were getting impatient, he
added.
