"Gua malas nak tulis jadi gua 'cut & paste' ni benda."

Retiring UN arms chief slams Pentagon officials

LONDON -- Outgoing chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has described certain members of the US administration as 'bastards' who set out to undermine him during his three years at the helm.

In an uncharacteristic outburst to a British newspaper published on Wednesday, Dr Blix said: 'I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much.'

In his interview to The Guardian, he also accused Washington of regarding the United Nations as an 'alien power' which it hoped would sink without trace.

Asked if he believed he had been the target of a deliberate smear campaign, he told the daily: 'Yes, I probably was at a lower level.'

With regards to the way he was treated over weapons inspections in Iraq, he said: 'By and large my relations with the US were good' but claimed that as the war against Iraq loomed, Washington 'leaned on' his inspectors to produce more damning language in their reports.

He added that US President George W. Bush's administration was particularly upset that the inspectors did not 'make more' of their discovery in Iraq of cluster bombs and drones in the run-up to the US-led war.

Dr Blix, who retires in three weeks and will be replaced by his deputy Dimitri Perricos, told The Guardian that he is convinced that there are people in Mr Bush's administration' who say they don't care if the UN sinks under the East river, and other crude things'.

Rather than seeing the UN as a collective body of decision-making states, he said Washington viewed it as an 'alien power, even if it does hold considerable influence within it'.

He said he 'remained agnostic' when asked if he believed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would ever be found in Iraq.

He said the prospect of them being uncovered was passing by 'quite fast and instead of talking about finding WMD they're talking about the programmes. We know for sure that they did exist...and we cannot exclude the coalition may find something'. -- AFP