United Nations: The United Nations weapons inspectors could be back on their job in
Iraq within two weeks of being asked by the world body to restart their work of
certifying if US and Britain came across any weapons of mass destruction, Chief
Weapons Inspector Hans Blix has said.
"I think the world would like to have a credible report on the absence or the
eradication of the programme of weapons of mass destruction," he told the BBC in an
interview at UN headquarters on April 17.
"We would be able not only to receive the reports of the Americans and the British
of what they have found or not found, but we would be able to corroborate a good
deal of
this," he said.
He said the US and Britain have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so far
but added that it was still too early to say whether Iraq is free of them.
However, he was also quoted as saying that he was "perhaps a little more inclined"
to believe Baghdad more now on his statement that it had no weapons of mass
destruction than before the war began.
But that view could easily change if some discovery was made, he added.
He said his own inspectors had found some evidence that could be the tip of a hidden
iceberg of banned weapons, but added that the same evidence could just be the
remnants of an abandoned programme.
However, the White House said on April 17 that it was not yet time to discuss the
possible return of UN weapons inspectors, who were withdrawn from Iraq one month ago
on the eve of the US-led invasion.
PTI
