Hans Blix
Hans Martin Blix (; born 28 June 1928) is a
Swedish diplomat and politician for the
Liberal People's Party. He was
Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978–1979) and later became the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency. As such, Blix was the first Western representative to inspect the consequences of the
Chernobyl disaster in the
Soviet Union on-site and led the agency's response to them. Blix was also the head of the
United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by
Dimitris Perrikos. In 2002, the commission began searching
Iraq for
weapons of mass destruction, ultimately finding none. On 17 March 2003, U.S. President
George W. Bush delivered an address from the White House announcing that within 48 hours, the
United States would
invade Iraq unless
Saddam Hussein would leave. Bush then ordered all of the weapons inspectors, including Blix's team, to leave Iraq so that America and its allies could invade Iraq on 20 March. In February 2010, Blix became head of the
United Arab Emirates' advisory board for its
nuclear power program. He is the former president of the
World Federation of United Nations Associations.
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