UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Tuesday lashed out at his critics in Washington and Iraq, describing them as "b*****ds who spread things around and plant nasty things in the media."

In an interview to the British newspaper Guardian, Blix, who retires in three weeks, abandoned diplomatic niceties to assail his detractors.

Accusing the  Bush Administration of leaning on his inspectors to produce more damning language in their reports, he said 'some elements' of the Pentagon were behind a smear campaign against him, and that Washington regarded the UN as an 'alien power'" which they hoped would sink into the East river.

"I have my detractors in Washington. There are b******ds who spread things around, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much. It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant."

Before he had even flown to Iraq to relaunch the sensitive weapons inspections after the four-year gap in November 2002, senior US defence department officials had described the former Swedish foreign minister as the worst possible choice for the post.

By autumn, he was being branded in Baghdad as a 'homosexual who went to Washington every two weeks to pick up [his] instructions'.

But while his staff openly point to the acrimonious relationship between him and the US, Blix says, "By and large my relations with the US were good." 

Saddam Hussein would never have complied with any of the UN resolutions on disarmament had it not been for the presence of US troops in the region, he believes.

"But towards the end, the [Bush] administration leaned on us," he said, hoping the inspectors would employ more damning language in their reports to swing votes on the UN Security Council.

Washington, he claimed, was particularly upset that the UN team did not 'make more' of the discovery of cluster bombs and drones in March. He said Washington's disappointment at not getting UN backing for an attack was 'one reason why you find scepticism towards inspectors'.

Washington now viewed the UN as an "alien power, even if it does hold considerable influence within it. Such [negative] feelings don't exist in Europe where people say that the UN is a lot of talk at dinners and fluffy stuff."

Given President Bush's openly proclaimed belief in the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, "it would be more desirable and more reasonable to ask for Security Council authority, especially at a time when communism no longer exists and you don't have automatic vetoes from Russia and China," he said.

It would also be far more 'credible' if a team of international inspectors were sent into Iraq instead of the 1,300-strong US-led team now in Iraq, he concluded.