Blix to Depart at End of June

Blix to Depart at End of June


Associated Press
Saturday, March 29, 2003; Page A26


UNITED NATIONS, March 28 -- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said today he will leave his job at the end of June, disappointed that his teams were not given a few more months to try to disarm Iraq peacefully.

Blix extended his contract for four months at the end of February, when inspectors were seeking substantive answers from Iraq on disarmament issues and the United States was warning that the time for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to cooperate was running out.

Blix said he will submit a quarterly report on June 1 to the Security Council on the work of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and leave at the end of the month, a few days after his 75th birthday.

"I look forward to going back to research, to writing about international law and not least to be with my family, my wife," the former Swedish foreign minister said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

Would he stay on if asked?

"I would have wanted to leave last year. However, the way things looked then we were into dialogue, and I didn't think I could do that," Blix said. "But as things look now, certainly I will be very happy to go home in June."

Blix took over the commission, known as UNMOVIC, in March 2000, three months after the Security Council established it to replace the first weapons inspection agency for Iraq, the U.N. Special Commission.

His inspectors returned to Iraq for the first time in four years in late November, soon after the council strengthened inspections and gave Baghdad a final chance to disarm peacefully or face serious consequences.

Blix said he is certain President Bush "hoped that this path to disarmament would be successful." But he said the U.S. administration "gave up on inspections" in late January or early February and began to prepare for military action.

Blix said he regrets he did not press the Iraqis earlier to do more to show they were actively cooperating on substantive issues.



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