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Blix Says Iraq Probably Destroyed WMDs
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believes that Iraq destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago, but kept up the appearance that it had them to deter a military attack. The strategy worked, all except for that last part. In an interview with an Australian radio station broadcast Wednesday, Blix said it was unlikely that the U.S and British teams now searching for weapons in Iraq would find more than some "documents of interest." "Iâm certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991," Blix told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. Not that you ever figured that out while you were inspecting the place. Wotta sooper-genius. "The more time that has passed, the more I think itâs unlikely that anything will be found." Blix indicated he thought the U.S.-led coalition had backtracked on the issue of Iraqâs weapons. "In the beginning they talked about weapons concretely, and later on they talked about weapons programs. Maybe theyâll find some documents of interest," he said. Among those documents will be the ones that detail how the Iraqis penetrated the inspections program. That will make interesting reading. Blix, who spent three years searching for Iraqi chemical, biological and ballistic missiles as head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said Iraq might have tried to fool the United States into believing it had weapons of mass destruction over the years in order to deter attack. "I mean, you can put up a sign on your door, âBeware of the Dog,â without having a dog," he said from his home in Sweden. That Saddam, he sure fooled us. Too bad he didnât think a little more about this, or he would have realized that the US doesnât cotton to blackmail too well. The United States and its allies Britain and Australia invaded Iraq in May after saying Saddam Husseinâs regime was developing nuclear arms as well as chemical and biological weapons. However, a search by the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group - which is made up of some 1,400 scientists, military and intelligence experts - has failed to uncover any weapons of mass destruction since the conflict ended. Oh well! Posted by: Steve White 2003-09-17 |
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