Hans Blix

“If public opinion still endorses military action that's one thing, but if they wait maybe it will not. So it's not only impatience, but there are several other factors.”

“The world has gotten so interwoven.”

“Iraq did not spontaneously opt for disarmament. They did it as part of a ceasefire, so they were forced to do it, otherwise the war might have gone on. So the motivation has been very different.”

“Negotiations with Iran, especially, will not be easy under any circumstances, but I suspect that they might be somewhat less difficult if the nuclear-weapon states could show that their requests are part of a broader effort to lead the world, including themselves, toward nuclear disarmament. Preventing further proliferation is essential, but it is not a recipe for success to preach to the rest of the world to stay away from the very weapons that nuclear states claim are indispensable to their own security.”

“I think that we have to do our job well, investigate thoroughly and then describe very honestly what we see to the Security Council. And some of the things might please people there and other things may not please the people.”

“You never get quite down to the bottom of the barrel, but we are much higher than that at the present time. There is quite a lot left in the barrel that could be explained by them. If they have some weapons, if they have some anthrax, they should deliver that.”

“Now the idea about taking people abroad is that if they come over to Cyprus, which we have in mind, and bring their families and would have the possibility to defect after they would be ready to speak their mind, well I hope so.”

“They have been saying for a long time that Iraq made an effort to import active uranium, and my colleague demonstrated the other day that they came to the conclusion that it was a fake document that everybody is relying upon.”

“The South Africans decided that they would like to prove to the world they did not have any nuclear weapons and their decision was not doubted because it was the end of the Cold War, it was also the end of apartheid.”

“By and large my relations with the US were good.”

“Like I said, I'm more worried long term about the environmental issues then the use of arms.”

“The country is not a democratic state. Therefore we fear that they might carry a recorder in their pocket or there may be bugs in the walls, and you cannot be absolutely sure that you get a straight testimony.”

“International cooperation, multilateralism is indispensable.”

“So interviews are a valuable tool, but under certain circumstances they'd be more valuable than others.”

“The U.N. is much more than the case of Iraq.”

“I don't think that anyone seriously fears that the world can be blown to pieces all together. But what one can fear and rightly so are regional things, like in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, the Korean Peninsula, borders in Africa, etc.”

“Look at the Palestinians with the huge, huge percentage of unemployed. What does that breed? Anyone who's unemployed in the world, you feel there's no meaning and there's a risk that you drift over to something desperate. Yes, we have to tackle the social problems as well.”

“It was to do with information management. The intention was to dramatise it.”

“The inspections started in 1991, right after the Gulf War. One of the conditions for the ceasefire was that Iraq had to do away with all of its weapons of mass destruction - biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.”

“If you take the biological weapons in the United States we still will have perhaps a single individual who was able to make anthrax, dry it, and spread it through the mail and cause terror.”