Chief UN weapons inspector faces chop

The United Nations' plan to discover the weapon-making capabilities of Iraq looked to be in ruins yesterday after it was revealed that the head of the delegation to the country should have retired at least nine years ago.

The 74-year-old Hans Blix has enjoyed a chequered career. After college in West Ruislip — where he studied logging and geometry — he worked for several years in Mozambique as one of the very first male au pairs. Following his sacking for the molestation of two of the mathematically-gifted children in his care, he worked as a puppet trainer in Denmark and then as a rodeo rider with the Swedish Foreign Ministry. It is only in the past few years that he has became an expert in nuclear weapons having taken a rigorous correspondence course in the subject from the University of Iowa's Bettendorf campus.

UN regulations insist upon the right of all human beings to be in a safe and secure retirement by the age of 65. Although this is not always observed worldwide, the UN cannot be seen to flaunt its own rules.

Confronted with the evidence while dining out at a four-star falafel stall in Babylon the UN's man was initially resilient. Later, however, a visibly-shaken Blix pleaded not to be sent home from his penthouse suite at the Travel Inn, Baghdad. "I need the money," the distinguished CIA agent insisted. "Ever since Equitable Life fuc*ked up and lost all that money my pension's been almost worthless," he sobbed.

Since the Iraqi tourist authorities are famously slow in allocating visas to visitors, it is believed that any replacement for the globetrotting pensioner would need at least six months to sort out the paperwork before getting down to sniffing out weapons of mass destruction.

Although a deal may still be brokered, the UN's carefully calculated plans to allow US president Dubya to start an all-out invasion of Iraq in time for the Super Bowl half-time show must now be in doubt. The wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington offices when the news came in could be heard as far away as other Washington offices.

World politicians were last night queuing up to excoriate Kofi Annan for allowing the cock-up to occur at all. European King Giscard d'Estaing broke off from writing the EU Bill of Obligations to share his views with the rest of us: "What is the point of employing these ageing has-beens in the first place? It's time for Hans Blix to make way for a younger man. Or a woman, of course. Though probably a man and most likely someone like me. In fact me, definitely."