Blix: Iraq destroyed WMD 10 years ago

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
1

This brings to mind that quote by Abraham Lincoln, Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. He who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or decisions possible or impossible to execute.

The first link provides the actual interview (which you can hear online) with Blix and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; second link is a Yahoo news link.

Hans Blix: Iraq Destroyed WMD 10 Years Ago, Yahoo News, 16 September 2003

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix now believes Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago and that intelligence agencies were wrong in their weapons assessment that led to war.

In an interview with Australian radio from Sweden, Blix said the search for evidence of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons would probably only uncover documents at best.

“The more time that has passed, the more I think it’s unlikely that anything will be found,” Blix said in the interview, which was broadcast on Wednesday. “I’m certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed almost all of what they had in the summer of 1991,” Blix said.

In 1991, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found what it called a secret nuclear weapons program in Iraq. It spent the next seven years dismantling Baghdad’s nuclear capability, until its inspectors were thrown out of Iraq.

Before ordering the invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein, President Bush referred to an imminent threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a prime justification for war.

“In the beginning they talked about weapons concretely, and later on they talked about weapons programs…maybe they’ll find some documents of interest,” Blix said.

Blix spent three years searching for Iraqi chemical, biological and ballistic missiles as head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

U.N. inspectors left Iraq in March this year as American and British forces prepared to invade. Calls for their reinstatement have been denied, with the U.S. occupation authorities preferring instead to set up their own body, the Iraq Survey Group.

After more than five months of searching, no weapons of mass destruction have been found by the Iraq Survey Group, which consists of about 1,500 experts.

U.S. officials said in July that the search had uncovered documents pointing to a program to develop such weapons. **But the U.S. media network ABC News reported on Monday that a draft report by the Iraq Survey Group provides no solid evidence that Iraq had such arms when the United States invaded.

The U.S. government has consistently said the search for weapons of mass destruction will take time and that it is confident evidence will eventually be uncovered.**

2

Nadia, I dont think anybody is surprised over nobody being able to find WMD in Iraq. But I recently heard somewhere in the close corridors, that the WMD were actually transfered to Syria;), before the Saddam regime was overthrown. IMHO, the American administration should go inside Syria, to find those banned weapons.

3

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by ZulfiOKC: *
**But I recently heard somewhere in the close corridors, that the WMD were actually transfered to Syria*
[/QUOTE]

Yep that's true. i heard that too. After Syria, they'll be transferred to Iran. Then they'll be transferred to Sudan. Then to Kenya. Then to Pakistan. Then to Indonesia. Then any other remaining uppity Muslim countries that need to be invaded.

4

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
Yep that's true. i heard that too. After Syria, they'll be transferred to Iran. Then they'll be transferred to Sudan. Then to Kenya. Then to Pakistan. Then to Indonesia. Then any other remaining uppity Muslim countries that need to be invaded.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly.

5

Nadia,

You conveniently left out the most telling portion of the interview, where Blix answers the question, "Then why did he behave as if he had these weapons."

Blix answer was that "You do not have to have a dog to hang out a Beware of Dog sign". He hypothesizes that Saddam kept up the illusion of WMD as a deterrent. Sort of worked against him in the end.

Saddam will undoubtedly end up as the worlds worst general.

6

Okay, now that we have some idea about the intentions of our well wishers, what can we do as Pakistanis and as Muslims, to save ourselves from this menace to the Muslim society?

7

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
Saddam will undoubtedly end up as the worlds worst general.
[/QUOTE]
Can we claim to be much better if the best of us believed his bluff and were unable or unwilling to prove/disprove it before acting on it?? Just because his bluff was a dangerous one doesn't excuse our own incompetence.

8

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by spoon: *
Can we claim to be much better if the best of us believed his bluff and **were unable or unwilling to prove/disprove it before acting on it*?? Just because his bluff was a dangerous one doesn't excuse our own incompetence.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly.

OG, Contrary to what you may believe, i didn't leave that part out on purpose ;) Of course he has been playing games all along. Don't we listen to our own rhetoric: Hussein is a dictator; he's going to play by his rules in order to sustain himself in power for as long as he can. He's been playing games for as long as the US admin has.

We engaged in an invasion upon one solid premise: that Iraq possessed WMD and Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to the civilized world. That premise was based, as we should all be mature enough to acknowledge now, upon a lie and a deceit. That exercise in deliberate deceit is something no genuine democratic government should have engaged in and, for that, surely, our governments should be held accountable.

9

Blix criticises UK’s Iraq dossier, BBC, 18 September 2003

Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix accused the British Government of using spin in its controversial dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Dr Blix criticised the “culture of spin, of hyping” and told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he hoped governments would be more cautious in the future use of special intelligence.

He compared the way Britain and America were sure Iraq had weapons of mass destruction programmes to the way people in the Middle Ages were convinced witches existed and so found them when they looked.

In response, the British Foreign Office said Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction was a matter of fact and the search for them would continue. Dr Blix’s comments come amid the Hutton inquiry into the death of British government scientist Dr David Kelly, who apparently killed himself after he was named as the source for a BBC story that the government “sexed up” the dossier.

Dr Blix said: "The UK paper that came out in September last year with the famous words about the 45 minutes - when you read the text exactly I get the impression it wants to convey to the reader and lead the reader to conclusions that are a little further reaching than the text needs to mean.

“One can read it restrictively but one can also lead to far-reaching conclusions and I think many people did.”

Dr Blix argued that exaggeration, spin and hype damaged government credibility. “We know that the advertisers will advertise a refrigerator in terms they do not quite believe in but you expect governments to be more serious and have more credibility,” he said.

Dr Blix said he understood that information had to be simplified but people still expected it to be reliable. He accused the British and American governments of “over-interpreting” intelligence. “They were convinced that Saddam was going in this direction and I think it is understandable against the background of the man,” he said.

"But in the Middle Ages people were convinced there were witches. They looked for them and they certainly found them.

“This is a bit risky. I think we were more judicious, saying we want to have real evidence.”

Dr Blix said the coalition could have waited and continued with UN inspections for a few more months, but they did not have the patience to do so. Now though, he said, US and British inspectors were free to go anywhere in Iraq, but were calling for the patience for themselves which they had failed to give to the UN.

Dr Blix had previously criticised Prime Minister Tony Blair for making a “fundamental mistake” in claiming that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. And his latest comments come a day after he said Iraq probably destroyed all of its weapons of mass destruction more than a decade ago.

Responding to Dr Blix’s criticisms, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction is a matter of fact. "Successive UN Security Council resolutions concluded not only that he had them but also had used them against his own people. Dr Blix’s own 173 page report set out in great detail Saddam’s history of obstruction of the UN inspectors.

“The process of searching for weapons of mass destruction is continuing. It will be thorough and deliberate, despite the difficult security environment.”

The spokesman stressed that Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee had concluded there was convincing intelligence that Iraq had active chemical, biological and nuclear programmes and the capability to produce chemical and biological weapons, as well as continuing to develop ballistic weapons.

Conservative shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram said a judicial inquiry into the run-up to the Iraq, not just into the circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, was now urgently needed. “Dr Blix’s comments raise serious questions to which the government must now respond,” said Mr Ancram. Liberal Democrat MP Menzies Campbell said Dr Blix’s remarks reinforced the need for the UK Government to publish the full legal advice it received on the eve-of-war. “Dr Blix’s careful academic analysis has dealt yet another damaging blow to the British government’s case for war,” said Mr Campbell.

10

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
In a trenchant phrase, Dr Blix compared the two governments' behaviour to people in Europe in the Middle Ages who were convinced that witches existed and so found them when they looked for them.
[/QUOTE]
"How loth were we to give up our pious belief in ghosts and witches, because we liked to persecute the one, and frighten ourselves to death with the other!"
-- William Hazlitt, *On the Pleasure of Hating