Hans Blix

Hans Blix was born in Uppsala, Sweden in 1928 and was the country's Foreign Secretary 1978-79 (the Liberal Party). He is the chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), founded by the Swedish government in 2003. From 2000 to 2003, Blix was head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which carried out inspections in Iraq in 2002 and 2003. Since the inspections had found no evidence of Iraqi possession of nuclear weapons, Blix was critical of the evidence laid forward by the U.S. government, and has also expressed concern that the fear of Iranian nuclear weapons is exaggerated.

In 2007 Blix also critized Israel: "We assume Israel has 200 nuclear warheads. Stop the work in Dimona."

External Resources

• Oral Evidence, Iraq Inquiry 27 July 2010.