Iraq cannot be trusted to disarm, but only the UN Security Council can decide when to end arms inspections, top UN arms inspector Hans Blix said in an interview.
The inspection process is taking longer than expected but should be allowed to continue if Iraq cooperates in a meaningful way, Blix told Time magazine in an interview published Sunday.
"Of course they have no credibility. If they had any, they certainly lost it in 1991. I don't see that they have acquired any credibility," Blix said.
"There has to be solid evidence of everything, and if there is not evidence or you can't find it, I simply say sorry, I don't find any evidence and I cannot guarantee or recommend any confidence. It might be there, it might not be there."
Blix refused to say, however, if Iraq was in material breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. "In the last resort, this is a political decision" for the council to make, he said.
Meanwhile, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said US President George W. Bush has behaved without manhood and chivalry toward Baghdad, and that Washington would fail to humiliate Iraq.
"The Iraqi (citizen) is not easy when he is angry. The Iraqis are angered by the behaviour of their enemy that has not kept within the minimum of manhood and chivalry," Saddam told a Lebanese delegation Sunday.
"Tell your brothers that the Americans can damage and destroy buildings and facilities, but they will fail to humiliate Iraq," Saddam said in comments carried by the Iraqi News Agency (INA).
Saddam later met Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney general who has been an opponent of a US-led war against Iraq. INA said that during the talks Saddam saluted anti-war protesters who have staged mass rallies across the world. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
