An inspector recalls

When Hans Blix first became the UN’s chief Iraqi weapons inspector, journalists joked that his name made him sound like one of those sinister baddies who lurked in elaborate underground headquarters in Seventies James Bond films. (‘Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr Hussein. It may be your last.’) Much to the frustration of the British and American governments, however, Blix never employed seven-foot enforcers with steel teeth, or threw anyone into a piranha pool, and the 007 echo of his name was about as exciting as he ever got. On the road to war, what London and Washington needed was a Judge Jeffreys, armed with a rhetorical smoking gun. What they found themelves saddled with was a sort of Scandinavian John Birt.

Of course, in 2000, when Blix was appointed, none of this had mattered terribly. As he reminds us, Britain was a great deal more sanguine about the less than dastardly threat posed by Iraqi WMD in those days.