Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans “Blix warned that the deficiencies [in Iraq’s compliance with U.N. weapons inspections] were so grave as to suggest that Saddam did not grasp the gravity of the situation. Iraq, Blix told the Security Council on January 27 [2003], did not seem to have accepted ‘the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.’ ”
– Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II, Page 151