In a New York Times interview published March 16, 2004, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said: ” ‘I think they [the Bush Administration] had a set mind,’ said Blix, ‘They wanted to come to the conclusion that there were weapons. …You could say that Iraq was perhaps as much punitive as it was preemptive. It was a reaction to 9/11 that we have to strike some theoretical, hypothetical links between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists. That was wrong. There wasn’t anything.’ ”
– James Bamford, A Pretext for War, Page 360