former director of the of the air force joint strike fighter program to talk about the defense department's aircraft program. our series continues on tuesday with a look at ambush protected vehicles. friday, a conversation on real the bit -- on rehabilitation programs for injured veterans. "washington journal" is live at 7:30 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the british house of commons is in summer recess. prime minister's questions will return wednesday, said no. 8. this sunday, we will show a portion of testimony before the british government about the weapons of mass destruction. he told investors that they failed to uncover any of these

in iraq and that the invasion was illegal. the u.s. and britain relied on port intelligence sources leading up to the invasion. -- poor intelligence sources leading up to the invasion. the panel is expected to issue a report by the end of the year, which will then be debated in parliament. the hearings ran from november, 2009, to the end of july, 2010, with a total of 132 witnesses. this portion is one hour 15 minutes. >> good afternoon and welcome. welcome to everyone this

afternoon. our witness is dr. hans blix. you, sir, served as the executive chairman for the united nations monitoring, verification and inspection commission, which i think we are allowed to call unmovic, from 1 march, 2000 until the end of june, 2003. as chairman of unmovic, you had overall responsibility for the inspection process in iraq. the process itself ran, we understand, from 27 november, 2002 until 18 march, 2003, just two days before the commencement of military action. we hope to look today at some detail about the inspection process, the context in which it took place and the stage it had reached by the time the inspectors were withdrawn from iraq on 18 march, 2003. now i say on every occasion and i repeat it this afternoon, we recognize that witnesses give evidence based on their recollection of events and we of course check what we hear against papers to which we have access and which we are still receiving. i remind every witness on each

occasion you will later be asked to sign a transcript of the evidence to the effect that the evidence they have given is truthful, fair and accurate. with those preliminaries out of the way i will ask sir martin to gilbert to open the questions. martin? >> dr. blix, we would like to begin by looking at the history of inspections in iraq and in particular the legacy of the unscom inspections in the 1990's that set the context for unmovic's creation and your subsequent work. you were of course at the time the director general of the international atomic energy agency, which also played a significant part in iraq. we have of course read your "disarming iraq" and all your reports. could you start by explaining to us what the wmd-related obligations of iraq were following the conclusion of the 1991 gulf war and the adoption of unscr 871?

>> right. yes. they were set out in resolution 687 of 1991 and iraq was to declare its weapons of mass destruction and the logistics of it to the facilities and such. then unscom was to verify the biological and chemical and missile part of the program and the iaea was to verify the nuclear part of the program. both unscom and iaea were to ensure the destruction of items they had found proscribed. the leverage were the sanctions, and the sanctions were quite draconian, simply that no state was allowed to import any oil from iraq.

so they were cut off altogether from their income. now the resolution 687 also foresaw that when everything was destroyed and eliminated there would be monitoring by un inspection and there was no time limit set for that. so they assume that the ban on import or weapons would remain for an indefinite period of time. at least it was not decided when. secondly, that monitoring would be there for a very long time. now the means to verify the iraqi declarations were by the right to go anywhere and to request to see anybody, and to check with exporters and to receive intelligence from national intelligence organizations. the thought was at the time that it would be a relatively short time for disarmament, that it would be quick, that the sanctions would be so effective that iraq would declare everything.

that proved a false assumption. the iraqis did not declare any biological program at all and they first denied there was a nuclear program, but very shortly thereafter they came up with some declaration and they enlarged it as we went along. now due to this lack of cooperation by the iraqis, the suspicions arose. there was no confidence at all between unscom and iaea on one side and the iraqis on the other. a verification developed from a checking of their statements to a hide and seek as we saw it. in reality we know by now that saddam ordered the destruction of the weapons of mass destruction already in 1991. some would declare some chemicals remained and were later destroyed under unscom's supervision but a very large part was destroyed unilaterally

by the iraqis without inviting the inspectors, which was of course a violation of the resolution. >> can i ask what were the particular areas in which unscom was successful and what were the areas which it was unable to resolve. >> i think that rolf ekeus, who was the first chairman of unscom, is fond of saying that more weapons of mass destruction were destroyed in iraq during the period of inspections than during the gulf war and that may well be right, though most of it perhaps was destroyed by the iraqis without the presence of the inspectors. so it very much was discussed and someone has said this was really achieving disarmament without knowing it is going on. at the same time, of course, there was an attempt by the iraqis to keep as much as they could of their capability -- well, at least of their

resources, that they saw huge buildings that had been used for the weapons program, and they would be judged, or sentenced for destruction. they presumably felt they could use them later for some other peaceful purpose or perhaps even to think one day they might revive the program. so they were trying to preserve as much as they could, and on the missile side there was -- they had a particular chance to do so, because the missiles were not proscribed except for those that reached, attained a range of 150 kilometers and more. so that meant that continued work to the missiles area was legitimate. they could keep their engineers, they could keep their research institutions, and that also enabled them to stretch a bit and to exceed what really was acceptable and we discovered that later on, as we will probably come to. now i sometimes ask myself could one have, and i have seen

the question has been asked in this commission before, could there have been a somewhat less exacting approach? the approach both we had and the unscom had, and that came originally from iaea, was what we called the material balance approach. we got their declarations. they had so-and-so much before the war started with iraq. they consumed so-and-so much during the war. they destroyed so-and-so much, and was there something that should be left? this was the material balance. there were uncertainties in this. how much actually had they consumed in the war with iraq and how much had they destroyed, and moreover there was the question of how meticulous was their bookkeeping? i for one agreed with the majority that the iraqis were very good bookkeepers. it was a well organized state.

therefore i became suspicious if the figures didn't tally. afterwards i think we have to recognize that perhaps it was not all that good, especially at the end of the gulf war. there was a rush and things were hurriedly buried and i think the british found some in the south of iraq after the war that had been hurriedly buried. there was not a recording of all of that. could there have been this meticulous material balance approach, could one have had a different one, less exacting? it is not easy to devise one, but i remember well that in the iaea when we in 1991 said that the safeguard system that we had was inadequate, inspectors were not allowed to go to places they were not declared, and we switched then -- developed the reinforced safeguards, the so- called additional protocol.

at that time we also said it is a bit too mechanic a approach in the material balance and this was easy and good for department of administration, bureaucracy to have such a rigid and simple, straightforward system, but didn't one have to exercise one's common sense as well? didn't one have to look at the country as a totality? some people complained to the iaea and said, "look, you are spending more time on canada than you are doing on libya and that's not reasonable." we said that well, a police department, they can decide that this particular area is crime-infested and therefore we spend a lot of time, but international inspectors are more like inspectors at the airport. we assume everyone could be

violating the rules and whether you wear a tie or not we examine you the same way. so that was our defense, but at the same time we had to admit that yes, maybe you have to combine this approach of the material balance with looking at the country in totality. if they are well-behaved -- you wouldn't use that term, but if they were very good at reporting, if there was a good order and there was an openness, well, then a certain sort of rebate could be given. maybe something in that direction could have been used in the case of iraq. one has to admit that over the years this tremendous search for a few items, that was perhaps not worthwhile, that it would have been better to have something a bit more flexible. scott ritter who was an inspector for unscom came out after the war and said in his view iraq had been technically disarmed. well, i don't think he had

sufficient evidence to back it up, but what he meant was probably that, yes, we knew after the war there were no nuclear weapons. there never were any, and moreover that the nuclear infrastructure was gone. so on that area the iaea, both in 1997 and muhammad al-baradei in 1998 said that we did not think that they could resurrect a nuclear program within a very long time, but we could not guarantee there were not some minor items like prototypes of centrifuges or computer programs, etc. so we wanted to write off the nuclear program, but of course it was not for us, it was for the security council and i have seen from some testimony here that i think the uk also wanted to close the nuclear dossier but the us refused, which we noticed at the time. >> if i could just go back to the general perception of unscom's work, our former foreign secretary jack straw told us in his evidence, "the

iraqi regime had for four years following the gulf war and notwithstanding the best efforts of unscom inspectors and intelligence agencies been successful in wholly concealing an extensive biological weapons program." what impact did this have on the credibility of the inspections as a tool for achieving disarmament. >> well they had, of course, destroyed -- at least most of the biological weapons in 1991, but they denied in 1991 that they had the program and it was not -- unscom was on its track to it and by 1995 unscom had concluded and the iraqis had admitted to unscom there had been a biological program. the big breakthrough came in the so-called chicken farm, kamala, the son in law of saddam hussein who defected to jordan and admitted there had been a

biological program. i think the fact that unscom did not discover this from the beginning, although there could have been suspicions, shows the difficulties of finding traces. iraq is a big country. there were many bases. they had suspicions, they came into facilities where there was fresh paint, etc. so there were suspicions, but they didn't find the iraqis red-handed on it. nuclear in a way was easier, because if you find a, nuclear, you say where is b? if you find b, then where is c? nuclear was the easiest and biological was probably the most difficult. >> can i ask you when you came into your own unmovic position, what lessons did you yourself learn from the unscom experience with regard to what your work would be, the problems and the prospects?

>> well, one reason i accepted the task was that i thought that some of the resistance met by unscom was due to the way in which they conducted their inspections. at the iaea we often thought they were too "rambo", if i may say so. they thought that the iaea were like diplomats coming in with striped pants. i thought -- i never thought that humiliating iraq was a very good way. some of the content, i will not generalize, but some of it was i think humiliating. the iaea developed techniques of conversation, of seminars even with iraq, interviews and eventually we got ourselves a clear picture of the whole nuclear program. unscom i think also imitated some of that approach and

learned a great deal, but this was one lesson that i took from the unscom affairs. otherwise we had many similar means. i mean, there was the inspection. we used overhead imagery received from the us and from france both at the iaea and unscom, and when we resumed in unmovic, we did the same. we also had people who were able to read these images. we also bought images then commercially, which was not doable in the 1990's. there were big differences in the approaches and techniques. unscom frequently had very huge groups of inspectors that came in swarms, 50 or even up to near 100. they flew into bahrain through

something called gateway, which was located in the american marine base. they were briefed there. they went in for the inspection. they came out. they were also debriefed at the american base, which i did not think was a very good idea. iaea did not use that. when we set up unmovic, we did not continue with gateway, but we set up a transit place in cyprus, which i think was a better arrangement. that leads me to another lesson which we drew. you recall that at the end of 1999 and the beginning of 2000 there was a scandal about unscom, that they had had very close relations with the intelligence in the us in particular, but also with the uk. there were inspectors in the teams who actually came from the intelligence services and

performed a sort of dual function. how often i don't know, but this certainly happened and it exploded in the media and the whole of unscom was discredited at the time. this was one reason why the security council concluded they wanted to have a new agency, a new instrument. it was certainly my determination coming from the iaea where we would never have tolerated, if we had known it, any dual use of inspectors, that we would not have it. the cnd in the resolution that set up unmovic in 1284, it was taken that the staff should be under un contracts and un obligations. this was a leading idea for me. i came from the iaea where we saw ourselves as international civil servants in the tradition that was started by a famous brit, sir eric drummond, the first secretary general of the league of nations who was very firm on this, and louis avenol too, on this, although he as the secretary general also had under the charter political

responsibility. but the secretariat was the same. they were to be international civil servants. this was the way we saw it and i would not go along with any too close cooperation with intelligence. if you set the rule, both mohammed al-baradei and i, that yes, we would love to have information from intelligence. we would love to have sites given to us by them, but the traffic is one way. they tell us and we try to find, use this intelligence, try to find out on the basis where if there was something, i think that we would probably -- i think we probably told those who gave us the intelligence that, "yes, this is what we found", or, "this is not what we found." however, if one had been rigid one would have said, "you listen to us in the security council", but i think it was a little more flexible than that, and i think that moreover had been reasonable. so we saw ourselves. this was even more good lessons. we were international civil servants, we had the mandate from the security council, not from the cia, the us government or the uk government.

>> thank you very much. that's very helpful. >> i will ask sir roderic lyne to pick up the questions now. rod. >> i would like to move the story forward to the autumn of 2002, getting into the frame of reference that we are really focusing on in this inquiry. unmovic, as you say, was set up by resolution 1284 passed on 17 december 1999. march 2000 you had taken up i think your new duties. then on 16 september 2002 iraq finally makes an offer to allow the inspectors, the unmovic inspectors to come into iraq. why it was that iraq at this point, having rejected the inspectors up to then, turned around and invited them to come in?

>> i think the main reason was the military build-up by the united states. the idea had begun gently in the spring of 2002 and it accelerated in the summer of 2002 and in august 2002 you had the us national security, what's it called -- doctrine or paper in which they said some sensational things. to me at any rate it was sensational. they said that the us can use force without -- when it sees a growing threat. i had always seen and still see the un charter as a fundamental progress in the international community when it says that states are not allowed to use force against other states in territorial integrity, etc, with two exceptions. one was the self-defense

against an armed attack and the other is when there is an authorization from the security council, but the us here did not even refer to the un charter article 2, paragraph 4 or article 51, but simply said that in the time of nuclear weapons and of missiles this doesn't apply. of course, this was against the background of 9/11 and the whole reasoning that with 9/11 you cannot sit and wait for a danger growing. if you do that, then it gets too late. you have to do something before. well, that is a very fundamental issue even today, because if you say that you must wait for the attack to occur before you can do something, well, then it is rather late. on the other hand, if you say that you can take action before that, then you have to rely

upon intelligence. there is something in between this and that is the imminent threat which already came up in the 19th century with the famous case between the uk and the us. if you don't have to wait until they cross the territorial border, but if you see the rockets coming, then you can intervene. well, that was probably not good enough for the united states. we have seen other strains on this. it is still fundamental today. we saw in kosovo how there was a bombing without an authorization by the security council, much criticized by many since, and i am not convinced myself it was a legal action. we saw the british intervention in sierra leone. we saw the indian gobbling up goa, or an even better place perhaps nyerere's attack on uganda, amin's uganda. that was also not without an authorization. so there has been some stretch on this, but the us in 2002 at the time you refer to, threw it overboard, i simply say. i think they were high on

military at the time. they said, "we can do it." >> you commented in your book, "disarming iraq" you said and i quote, "i did not see that increasing military pressure and armed action necessarily excluded a desire for a peaceful solution." in this particular case, as you just said, the military pressure -- >> yes. >> had from your point of view the useful effect of getting you and your inspectors into iraq. >> that's right. >> at that point -- this is before resolution 1441 is actually passed -- what were the timelines under which unmovic was expected to operate and was it focused just on verifying the destruction of weapons or also of programs? >> well, resolution 1284 was a sort of -- not a resignation. that's saying too much, but they certainly took a step back.

they felt that the approach they had was too rigid, and things were not moving in the un's direction. the inspectors were out in 1998. the sanctions were eroding and there was also disagreement within the security council between those who wanted to do away with the sanctions altogether and those wanted to retain them. however, under the leadership of mr. amorim, who is now the foreign minister of brazil, they came to an approach which was less rigid than the 687. they said that you are not -- the emphasis is to identify key unresolved disarmament issues.

i say not the whole lot necessarily, but key unresolved disarmament issues, and if we were to report that iraq had cooperated to achieve this 120 days in a row then the security council would consider suspending sanctions, not lifting sanctions but suspending sanctions. the third element that was new then was that we should also have international civil servants. they wanted to cut off the connection with the intelligence. so unmovic mandate was a milder one than 687 and 1441 that came later was sort of clawing back or at least giving the impression of a greater impatience. unmovic gave us time lines, but

they were to start inspections i think, present a work program some 60 days after we had gone in, which curiously became to be defined as i think in march 2003. i don't remember quite why, but it was rather late at any rate. they wanted to give us time to find our way through inspections before we formulated our work program, which was a reasonable thing to do, but they didn't put any end to unmovic inspections. it was 120 days and if we were to report that the iraqis were not cooperating, then they would suspend -- they would impose sanctions again. so there was no end set except one was sure monitoring would continue. >> but it therefore appeared that 1441 had changed a timeline from 120 days to 60 days, although it was not expressed as a final deadline, it was a period within which you were asked to report. is that right? >> well, 1441 did not give any other timeline than, update in 60 days after we have started inspection. i am a little puzzled i must say at how they calculated, because the impression was that

the invasion would take place through turkey and that it would occur even in the beginning of january, and that would have given very, very short time to the inspections. as it turned out, we only got three and a half months, but had they gone into turkey it would have been even shorter. there was nothing in 1441 to say we could not continue beyond march. >> were you consulted on the drafting of 1441? >> yes, but not on this particular point. the first draft -- the american drafts were draconian, more than draconian in the beginning and i thought absurd, and i think the community in new york felt it also. over time it became more reasonable. i wanted the resolution for different reasons. first of all, i think we were in a new ball game, and secondly, they wanted to strengthen the rights of the inspectors. i thought that was very important, because unscom had so many conflicts with iraqis about their mandate and i thought, "let's settle that." muhammad al-baradei d