Bush and Blair's Iraq war was illegal: Hans Blix
London, December 05: George W Bush and Tony Blair were orchestrating a witch-hunt against late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein that ended with Iraq war which "in my view was illegal", a former UN weapons inspector has said.
Hans Blix, who headed the UN inspection team in the run up to the 2003 Iraqi invasion said then US president and British prime minister had "misled themselves and the public" about the conflict.
The presence of the weapons of mass destruction was the main justification by Bush for the US led war without the explicit approval of the UN and Blix said his team had found nothing in the run up to the invasion, nor were such weapons found afterwards.
Charging that Bush and Blair had behaved like 17th century witchfinders in their willingness to oust Iraqi dictator, Blix told British tabloid the Daily Mail: "They were convinced they had the witch in front of them, and they searched for the evidence and believed it without critical examination."
Blix said that Iraq could fire chemical weapons in 45 minutes was 'hyperbole' and said his inspectors had viewed 700 supposed WMD sites in the months before the war but found nothing.
The 81-year-old former UN arms inspector said he had given these findings to the UN, five weeks before the invasion.
"I am not saying they acted in bad faith, but they exercised very bad judgement," Blix said in sharp comments which come as an official inquiry is in progress on Britain's role in the Iraq war.
"The war in my view, was illegal, yes. The British knew the evidence ( of weapons) was thin, and they should have remembered that before they started shooting" Blix said.
On whether the former British prime minister could be tried for war crimes, Blix said, 'Well, yes, may be so. Well we will see. It's not very likely to happen.'
Former UN arms inspector said he would have been happy to testify before the Chilcot inquiry into the war, but had not been asked to attend.
--PTI
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