Blair: Saddam's weapons will be found

Tony Blair believes clear proof of Saddam Hussein's guilt over weapons of mass destruction will be published within weeks - despite a new claim that Iraq destroyed its arsenal 10 years ago.

Downing Street thinks an imminent report by the Iraq Survey Group, the body charged with searching for illegal weapons, will finally show that the Iraqi dictator was developing illegal arms.

The need for clear proof became more urgent today after Hans Blix, the former UN chief weapons inspector, said he now believes Saddam got rid of chemical and biological munitions a decade ago. Dr Blix dismissed the

British and US governments' claims that Iraq still had WMD when coalition forces invaded earlier this year and predicted that nothing would be found except "documents of interest".

In an interview with Australia's ABC television, Dr Blix said: "I'm certainly coming more and more to the conclusion-that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991."

Indicating that the US and Britain had backtracked on its mission to find chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, Dr Blix said: "In the beginning, they talked about weapons concretely, and later on they talked about weapons programmes. Maybe they'll find some documents of interest."

Dr Blix spent three years in charge of the hunt for Iraqi WMD until forced to give up on the eve of the invasion in March.

He said Saddam may simply have pretended to have kept such weapons to deter attack.

Downing Street quickly urged doubters to wait for the 1,300-strong Iraq Survey Group to complete its search of the country.

Government sources also said a major report from the group, due within weeks, could "contain interesting findings which will lay those doubts to rest".

In another development, President George Bush has admitted for the first time that Iraq was not guilty of complicity in the September 11 attacks.

The admission is regarded as embarrassing for the White House which strongly hinted at Iraqi guilt. Britain has never believed there was a link.

The new row on Iraq came as tensions rose in the Middle East over reports that Saudi Arabia may build a nuclear bomb. The Saudi government is said to be considering a strategy paper on the nuclear issue.

One option is obtaining nuclear capability as a deterrent but other options are joining a defensive alliance with an existing nuclear power or working towards a nuclearfree region.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in