Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix’s attack on the intelligence given to him by the United States and Britain may betray some frustration about the premature ending of the inspectors’ work in Iraq.

Or he may just have been wishing to highlight the difficulties his staff allegedly had to work under in their hunt for the weapons of mass destruction which no one has been able to find.

Saddam Hussein’s supposed possession of such weapons was the main justification for the US and British invasion of Iraq and Saddam’s subsequent overthrow – but the furore continues to grow as the allies fail to find any weapons, and decline to let the UN inspectors back in to help them.

In his last statement to the Security Council before he retires on June 30, Dr Blix made no mention yesterday of the refusal to allow inspectors back in.

He reiterated that his teams were ready to resume work, to confirm any findings since their departure just before the invasion began in March, and to continue monitoring Iraq’s weapons programmes.

In hard-hitting comments to the BBC, he said he was disappointed with the tip-offs provided by US and British intelligence, saying: “Only in three of those cases did we find anything at all, and in none of these cases were there any weapons of mass destruction, and that shook me a bit, I must say.”

He said UN inspectors had been promised the best information available.

“I thought – my God, if this is the best intelligence they have and we find nothing, what about the rest?”

His final report to the Security Council earlier in the week said the inspectors had many questions and leads to pursue when their searches were suspended.

They did not have time to follow up on some late information provided by the Iraqi government, he said – including interviewing a list of Iraqis who helped destroy anthrax after the 1991 Gulf War.

The 74-year-old’s role in walking a fine line between the hawkishness of Washington and the traditional trickery of Saddam’s regime was always an almost impossible one.

But the amiable former Swedish foreign minister approached his job calmly, in keeping with his background in the diplomatic service of his country.

“You have to exercise common sense in what is significant and what is not,” he said before the inspectors went back into Iraq last November after a four-year absence.

His critics have accused him of being too concerned with Iraqi sensibilities, saying Dr Blix and his staff worried too much about hurting Iraqi feelings, and were therefore liable to be deceived.

But he said the “cultural sensitivity” training which members of his organisation undergo is designed to stop them appearing obnoxious – an accusation made against previous weapons inspectors.

He said: “We are not coming to Iraq to harass or to insult or humiliate them. That’s not our purpose.”

His critics point to his failure to find Saddam’s secret nuclear weapons programme before the Gulf War during his time in charge of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA).

He admits he was hoodwinked, but argues that the rules of the time, since changed, did not allow for intrusive spot checks.

Everything changed after the Gulf War, when he took charge of the UN effort to uncover Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme and the full extent of Baghdad’s cheating was discovered.

He retired from the IAEA in 1997, after being its director general for 16 years. But he was thrust back into the spotlight when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan telephoned him at his holiday cabin in Antarctica in January, 2000 to offer him the job of chief inspector.

He was a compromise choice, after Russia, China and France rejected Rolf Ekeus, the candidate put forward by the US and Britain.

Dr Blix was born in Uppsala, Sweden, and educated at Uppsala University, Stockholm University, Columbia University in the United States and Cambridge University in England.

From 1963 he worked at Sweden’s ministry of foreign affairs in a variety of roles, rising to be minister for foreign affairs in 1978.

From 1961 to 1981 he was a member of Sweden’s delegation to the UN.

He has written several books on international and constitutional law.

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