LONDON — The United Nations former chief weapons inspector told Britain's inquiry into the Iraq war Tuesday that both London and Washington relied on dubious intelligence sources ahead of the 2003 invasion.
Hans Blix said the United States and Britain based their weapons assessments on poor quality information.
"They should have realized, I think, both in London and in Washington that their sources were poor," Blix said. "Their sources were looking for weapons, not necessarily weapons of mass destruction. They should have been more critical of that."
Blix said he warned then British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a February 2003 meeting — and in separate talks, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — that Saddam Hussein might have no weapons of mass destruction.
He said he told Rice and Blair his "belief, faith in intelligence had been weakened."
The five-member Iraq inquiry panel was set up by the British government to examine the case made for the war, including intelligence, and errors in planning for post-conflict reconstruction.
Blix has repeatedly claimed in the past that inspectors had too little time to assess whether or not Saddam was concealing weapons of mass destruction, as the United States and Britain believed.
He said that, immediately before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, his inspectors checked around three dozen sites said by British and U.S. intelligence to contain such weapons, but discovered no evidence.
"I made the remarks, which I've cited many times, that wouldn't it be paradoxical for you to invade Iraq with 250,000 men and find very little," Blix told the inquiry, referring to the Blair meeting.
The 82-year-old ex-inspector said he believed the U.S was "high" on military action in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and dismissive of opposing views.
Blix told the British panel that the U.S. was untroubled by issues over the authorization from the U.N. Security Council of military action.
"The U.S. in 2002 threw it overboard, I think they were high on military at the time. They said: 'We can do it,'" Blix said.
"I think there was at least implied from the U.S. that if the Security Council doesn't agree with us and go along with our view, then it sentences itself to irrelevance. That is, I think, a very presumptuous attitude," he told the panel.
The inquiry won't apportion blame or establish criminal or civil liability and has heard testimony from politicians and military and intelligence officials, including Blair.
Blix's testimony follows concerns raised last week by Eliza Manningham-Buller, ex-director of Britain's domestic spy agency MI5, that the prewar intelligence picture was "fragmentary."
"The picture was not complete. The picture on intelligence never is," she told the panel.