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| Axis of Evil |
| Blix to Iraq: Give Evidence or Face War |
| 2003-01-14 |
| Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix says Iraq must provide new evidence about its nuclear, chemical and biological programs or face the possibility of war. "I think they only need look around their borders and they should realize the seriousness" of the situation, Blix said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press and Associated Press Television News, alluding to the U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf and neighboring Kuwait. Blix said the inspectors need months to finish searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, but they may not get the time if the Security Council decides to stop inspections - or the United States takes military action. The world wants Iraq to disarm peacefully, Blix said. But to do that it must provide documents, allow U.N. inspectors to interview Iraqi scientists in private, and show physical evidence of what facilities and weapons have been destroyed. Which they can't and won't do. "What the show of force demonstrates to Iraq is that here is the other alternative," he said. Blix said the key message that he and Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will deliver to Iraqi officials when they visit Baghdad on Sunday and Monday is that Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration submitted to inspectors last month did not contain any new evidence to verify its claim that its weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed. "We need to have more evidence supplied to us. There are a great many open questions as to their possession of weapons of mass destruction and the Security Council and the world would like to be assured that these questions be sorted out," Blix said. In remarks aired late Monday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Baghdad is ready to answer any questions by U.N. inspectors, but insisted the arms report was comprehensive. "The declaration answers everything, but ... if they have any questions they would like to present to Iraq or issues that they want clarified from the Iraqi side, we welcome them in the meetings that will be held in Iraq," Sabri said. Iraq's "active cooperation" in answering outstanding questions is the most critical issue now, Blix said. "We think they have more evidence. In the situation in which they find themselves, I think they should make a very strong effort to produce this." Blix had complained that the United States and Britain kept saying they had evidence of Iraqi weapons programs, but weren't handing over the information. But U.N. officials said inspectors have started receiving intelligence from Britain and the United States and others, and expect further information. "We are getting much more information from several sources, and we do want to have it from several sources because that increases our credibility and the number of places we can go to," Blix said. "So I'm more optimistic on this score today." This is something I have been wondering about. We have (I'm assuming) info from satellite photos and other means about sites where we know they have WMD. We want to destroy these on day 1 of the war so we don't want Saddam to know what we know. However, it would be nice for diplomatic cover to have the U.N. inspectors find something that Sammy can't afford to give up. Now that much of what we need for a strike is, or soon will be in place, do we give them info on, say, one or two such sites just before the 27th? It sure would be nice to see the inspectors denied access to a site, and Blix have to report the same. Wishful thinking, I guess. The United States has also been pressing inspectors to take scientists outside Iraq for interviews. But Blix said such interviews still pose challenges. "We don't think we should be a mechanism for defection," Blix said. In the meantime, he said, inspectors will conduct some interviews with scientists in Baghdad this week. Which will do nothing. Blix and ElBaradei stressed that their Jan. 27 report to the Security Council would be an update - not a final report on the inspections that resumed in November after four years. "We can see a lot of work ahead of us beyond that date if we are allowed to do so," Blix said, but the decision on whether inspections continue is up to the Security Council. He said he did not know how long the American government was willing to wait for his team to complete its searches. "It could be that one day they will say, 'Move aside boys, we are coming in,'" he told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Monday. "That's possible, but I think a great many people and a great many governments would prefer to have disarmament through peaceful means." Or not at all. If the council does not take any action on Jan. 27, Blix told APTN that inspectors will go ahead with plans to identify by late March the key disarmament tasks that Iraq must fulfill before sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait can be suspended. These are likely to include detailed information about its anthrax and deadly VX nerve agent production, he said. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #10 "Why has Iraq's involvement in paying, sponsoring, harboring, training and conducting terrorism being completely forgotten?" Irrelavant and unprovable without burning sources at this time. The big fish is actually the Sauds, which is why we need Iraq back on this side of the fence, and that means that Sammy has to go down. The Sauds are bigger funders of terrorism than Iraq, because of their oil revenue. Sanctioning the Sauds would ruin the economies of Europe and Japan, if not ours. But with Iraq free, they become less revelent. No one at present has a smoking gun with Sammy's fingers on it, so from a PR angle, its a stretch to finger him for 9-11 or much else outside his country. He is good at 'plausible deniability'. Saying he aided or abetted 9-11 without the ability to prove it looks like we are jsut making stuff up, strengthens his position in the international community. So we say nothing. And burn him for the WMD |
| Posted by: Ben 2003-01-15 09:41:50 |
| #9 Why has Iraq's involvement in paying, sponsoring, harboring, training and conducting terrorism being completely forgotten? This is a war on terrorism, not WMD. The only reason WMD in Iraq is a problem, is because Iraq is in the hands of a manaical murderer. |
| Posted by: Jabba the Tutt 2003-01-14 22:20:34 |
| #8 I've wondered what would be the point of sending the get-along-gang to Iraq if they weren't going to find anything. On the other hand, if they did find something, there would be no war, no ousting of Saddam, just a simple "disarmament" under UN supervision. The goal of course is to get rid of Saddam permamently. So actually, the inspectors right now are playing their part very nicely. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-01-14 20:58:06 |
| #7 Try this on for size. Even GW is starting to get impatient. Britain, Australia, even Canada are now talking about war without UN sanction. Hint to Kofi: you are losing control of the situation; your man Blix admits he is running in circles. And even if Blix is lucky/unlucky to stumble on something, nothing he finds would be enough to sway the anti-war dodos. Therefore, much of the current rhetoric is more about influencing what Blix actually puts in his Jan 27 report, that Iraq is in "Material Breach" and Bush has the green light. |
| Posted by: john 2003-01-14 19:31:21 |
| #6 Sorry, that was my anonymous comment up there, forgot to fill in the blanks (hey Fred, can we fix that?). Ptah, I suspect you're right in that Inspector Clou..., er Blix, suspects that he's being fooled. The question is whether or not that's his mission (to be fooled). I think a fair number of the EUnuch states want precisely that, so that all this war talk will go away and they can get back down to business. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-01-14 18:39:00 |
| #5 Here's my take: Blix is probably 90% confident he's being taken to the cleaners, but can't prove it. The last thing he wants is another repeat of him clearing Iraq of WMD, only to have a defector pop up and give info that makes him look like a fool. My take is that there WILL be an Adlai moment,with satellite or predator visual evidence of Iraqui "cleaning" of sites: the accusation of doctored photos was just as likely then than now. The only question is whether Blix will be the presenter, or the US of A. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-01-14 14:49:25 |
| #4 I'm afraid that Adlai set the bar too high. Iraq is a very effective police state and excels at hiding stuff. Unlike the Cuban missiles, much of Iraq's WMD is easily concealable. Besides, even if we present photographic evidence, half the world will just say it might be doctored. As it is, much of our info comes from defectors with questionable motives and whose defection will have already prompted the Iraqis to move the goods. It feels unamerican to attack a country without "proof." But now that rogue states can get WMD, we're going to have to rely on common sense. The alternative is a nuclear 9/11. |
| Posted by: JAB 2003-01-14 11:54:02 |
| #3 Maybe some of our special forces can kidnap Hans Blix one night, sneak over to where we're reasonably certain there are biochem weapons, point them out, then stick him back in his hotel room. Or, maybe, just kidnap him and slap him with a flounder for a while. ;) |
| Posted by: Just John 2003-01-14 11:48:28 |
| #2 Wait a minute, was that Inspector Clouseau rattling a saber? Blix must be getting cheesed off, or else he's getting tired of the Iraqis and wants to get back home to Geneva. As to staging an Adlai Stevenson moment at the U.N., I think we're going to have to do this; we need to give Tony Blair the necessary cover. He's been a stalwart friend, and you don't yank the rug out from under your friends. Perhaps we can disclose something for Inspector Clouseau to find that can't be moved so easily -- say, a uranium enriching facility. We can still take it out when the war starts. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-01-14 11:43:29 |
| #1 It would really help to have the inspectors nail the Iraqis just once on something of substance. The question is how. It seems to me that getting info to the inspectors secretly, keeping it secret, and then getting to the sites for a total suprise visit is the equivalent of a serious covert operation and the UN folks just cannot keep the secret long enough, or the group could already be compromised. So the effort, though noble, is doomed to failure. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-01-14 10:21:35 |