Blix attacks Washington ‘bastards’

UN Chief Weapons Inspector Dr Hans Blix yesterday hit out at the “bastards” in Washington, who he claims ran a smear campaign against him.

The out-of-character outburst comes as the normally diplomatic 75-year-old is due to retire as head of the UN Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission (Unmovic), which oversaw the hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear arms programmes in Iraq.

In an interview with The Guardian, Dr Blix said: "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much. "It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning an irritant."