Tom,

Blix's reports to the U.N. represent a work in progress regarding the uncertainties about the state of Iraq's weapons programs. But in each and every case, Mr. Blix concluded that he could not provide definitive evidence that Iraq still possessed chemical and biological weapons. His problem was that he could not prove that Iraq had destroyed past stockpiles of these materials Iraq was known to possess. Saddam claimed that he had destroyed these stockpiles. It is now clear that this is exactly the case. This is precisely why Mr. Blix recommended that U.N. inspections be allowed to proceed, rather than resort to war.

I should also note that prior to the war, the U.N. also concluded that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program. This too appears to be the case.

Selectively excerpting Mr. Blix's U.N. reports in order to justify the Bush administration's erroneous pre-war claims in an exercise in spin. But what no one here can avoid accepting is that we have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Our post-war search has now exceeded the time we gave Mr. Blix and we are still empty-handed.