One of the reasons for Hans Blix's popularity with the United Nations and Iraq as UNMOVIC chief seemed to be his penchant for keeping conclusions within the scope of reasoning provided by Saddam's regime. No weapons to be found, despite twelve Security Council resolutions admonishing the Ba'athists for noncompliance? Of course! They must never have been there:

Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believes that Iraq destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago.

Blix said it was unlikely that the US and British teams now searching for weapons in Iraq would find more than some "documents of interest."

"I'm certainly coming more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991," Blix told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Almost everything? Blix is certainly a timid, collaborative bureaucrat - but I never took him as a shill for the Ba'ath Party. Either the United Nations Special Commission lost a few ring-binders before handing them over to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission; Hans Blix doesn't know about documented gaps in weapons turnover; or he's simply omitting obvious facts. First of all, UNSCOM, not the Iraqi regime, destroyed these weapons in their fencing match with the Ba'athists between 1991 to 1998:

38,537 filled and empty CW munitions
480,000 liters (690 tons) of CW agents
3000 tons of precursor chemicals
8 types of delivery systems
The al-Hakam BW production facility
48 Scud missiles
6 operational mobile launchers
28 operational fixed launch pads
32 fixed launch pads under construction
30 chemical warheads
14 conventional warheads
Other related equipment

Is that splitting hairs? Not really. But the inconsistency of Blix's statement with recorded fact is nowhere near that of his other claim to "all, almost, of" Saddam's weapons stockpiles being destroyed in 1991. Under Blix's logic, we can consider the following list of weapon quantities - known to UNSCOM but unaccounted for by the Ba'athist regime as recently as 1998 - to be "almost nothing":

Scud missile components, warheads and propellant
17 tons of growth media for the production of BW agents
Items of CW production equipment
4,000 tons of CW precursors
750 tons of VX precursors
100 al-Hussein missiles
31,000 CW munitions
20 R-17 Scud-B -type missiles
40-70 CBW-capable missile warheads
Significant quantities of biological warfare agents
Significant quantities of 155-mm ammunition rounds

And, once again, Blix misses the point - he misses Saddam's game entirely. Colin Powell warned the Security Council on February 5th of this year about Iraq's nuclear potential and a deceptive strategy that can logically be applied to any weapons pursuit:

We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons programme. On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.

Former senior Iraqi nuclear scientist Khidir Hamza indicated a similar Hussein game plan (emphasis mine):

What is not recognized by the world community, though, is the determination with which the regime of Saddam Hussein intends to pursue programs to produce weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, once sanctions are lifted. The nuclear weapons group is still in place; the expertise is still there; and Saddam Hussein and his colleagues are well practiced in the arts of deception.

Blix's also repeats the silly idea that Saddam would bluff possession of WMDs. It's obvious that his press statements were meant for European consumption - but they're insulting to relevant facts nonetheless. Set aside the reasonable assumption that Iraq has not received anything resembling a thorough search (many of the unaccounted items are incredibly easy to hide, anywhere in the country) and the suspicion that weapons may have been sent to trusted caretakers. Against the very information of his own general department, Blix adds more credibility to the idea that he was not a man meant to lead an invasive, successful disarmament verification operation.