January 28, 2003: Powell Said to Misrepresent Report from Weapons Inspectors

US Secretary of State Colin Powell tells reporters after the UN inspectors’ January 27 interim report: “The inspectors have also told us that they have evidence that Iraq has moved or hidden items at sites just prior to inspection visits. That’s what the inspectors say, not what Americans say, not what American intelligence says; but we certainly corroborate all of that. But this is information from the inspectors.” [Associated Press, 1/27/2003] But Hans Blix, the chief UNMOVIC weapons inspector, tells the New York Times a few days later that UN weapons inspectors had experienced no such incidents. [New York Times, 1/31/2003]