http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/17/1092508481025.html
By Tom Allard, Foreign Affairs Reporter
August 18, 2004

The United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix says he told the Prime Minister, John Howard, weeks before the Iraq war that he had serious doubts that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Dr Blix's account of a one-on-one meeting in his New York office on February 11 last year undermines Mr Howard's repeated claim, made again yesterday, that "everybody" believed Iraq had such weapons before the military action.

"I am confident that, far from saying to Mr Howard that there were WMDs in Iraq, I conveyed to him that we were not impressed by the 'evidence' presented to this effect," Dr Blix said in an email sent last week.

"Regrettably, there were few at that time who cared to examine evidence about Iraq with a critical mind."

Immediately after the meeting, Mr Howard declined to inform reporters travelling with him about what had transpired.

"I don't think it's helpful at this stage for me to be trying to put some particular interpretation on the discussion I had," he said at the time.

Yesterday his spokesman said: "The PM has looked at the record of conversation, and Hans Blix did not tell him that Iraq did not have WMD. Mr Blix was quite careful and guarded both in his comment and judgement."

Dr Blix's email exchange was with Peter Browne, a researcher at Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology and editor of the academic research website Australian Policy Online. In the email, Dr Blix said he did not take notes of the conversation with Mr Howard but his recollection was clear.

By February 11, he said, the UN inspections team was becoming increasingly sceptical about the reports of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons stockpiles and programs. The vast majority of the leads provided to his team had turned up nothing.

Dr Blix addressed the UN three days after his meeting with Mr Howard, saying "one must not jump to the conclusion that they [WMD] exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded".

Mr Howard dismissed Dr Blix's comments in his February 14 address as adding nothing new and reinforcing Iraq's lack of co-operation. As the mid-March invasion date drew closer, he said unequivocally that Iraq possessed biological and chemical weapons stockpiles.

With no weapons of mass destruction found, Mr Howard has defended his decision to go to war by saying nobody, including the Opposition, thought Saddam Hussein might not have such weapons.

Speaking on ABC NewsRadio yesterday, Mr Howard said he did "agree that the evidence to date does not suggest [the existence of Iraqi WMD]", although he would not rule out that they would turn up eventually. "Everybody believed at the beginning of last year that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."

Dr Blix's account of his conversation with Mr Howard shows that the man who arguably knew more about Iraq's weapons than anyone else did have serious reservations about the existence of such weapons at that time.

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