Warning from Sweden: UN’s Iraq arms inspector Blix is ‘weak and easily fooled’

A former top Swedish diplomat warns that Hans Blix, chief of the United Nations arms inspection team in Iraq, is out of his league in dealing with Saddam and is likely to be fooled again by the Iraqi regime.

In surprisingly un-diplomatic language, Per Ahlmark, former deputy foreign minister of Sweden, warns that Blix, whom he has known for 40 years, is “weak and easily fooled,” unsuitable “for a showdown with Saddam,” “naive and relatively ignorant of technical details,” a “wimp” with a “track record of compounded failure,” and “a man repeatedly duped [by] the Iraqi regime.”

Blix falsely issued Iraq a clean bill of health before, wants to avoid confrontation with Saddam, and reproached a senior colleague, David Kay, for disbelieving official Iraqi statements, Ahlmark writes.

No wonder so many of Saddam Hussein’s allies want Blix and his team back in Iraq to forestall US-led military action.

According to Ahlmark, “When the current U.N. inspection team was being put together in 1999, both Mr. [Rolf] Ekeus and Mr. Blix were among the candidates being considered to head the new group of inspectors. Friends of Iraq in Paris and Moscow consulted Baghdad to see whom Saddam would prefer. France and Russia then suggested Mr. Blix. Surprisingly the Clinton administration accepted that decision.”

The State Department appears to be putting its full confidence in Blix. The Bush Administration should raise strong doubts his track record even as it approves his new mission to certify Saddam Hussein’s compliance with UN resolutions.

Click here for a White House report on Iraqi denial and deception (D&D).

David Ignatius shows that France and other US opponents use UN process to undermine American aims in Iraq.