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Hans BlixÕs spin cycle


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By John Metzler
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Monday, September 22, 2003

UNITED NATIONS Ñ On the verge of the opening of a new UN General Assembly, former chief weapons inspector Dr. Hans Blix has gone public with a series of deeply disturbing allegations that SaddamÕs elusive weapons of mass destruction may have been gone well before the Iraq war. Blix, whose international weapons teams searched in vain for SaddamÕs chemical, biological, and nuclear arsenal, has now vaingloriously accused the American and British governments of Òa culture of spin, of hypingÓ to build public opinion for the conflict.

So here we have the man who ran an extensive team of scientist/searchers under the UNMOVIC mantle saying basically that the whole exercise, coming to think of it, was probably a charade! I suppose his extensive briefings to the UN Security Council last year and early this year Ñ in which the former Swedish diplomat painstakingly documented the missing Iraqi munitions and proscribed materials, were all really Òspin cycle.Ó

Now that Blix concludes that Saddam probably had destroyed the secret WMD stocks a decade ago, why then did the good doctor assemble inspection teams, why did he regularly visit Baghdad, why did his periodic Reports to the Security Council contain so much detail of what weapons still may be undiscovered? To continue receiving a lucrative UN salary?

What about Saddam? Why did the Iraqi dictator who claimed his weapons had been destroyed then proceed to act so guilty when people wanted to certify proof positive? Why did Saddam not come clean with the WMD charge, thus allowing both a lifting of the UN economic sanctions and for all practical purposes guaranteeing his odious regimeÕs survival?

A little background. In September 2002, President George W. Bush addressed the General Assembly and issued a blunt challenge to the UN ø disarm Iraq or the USA will do it alone. He pressured Iraq to allow UN weapons inspectors back into the country.

Days after the Bush speech, SaddamÕs Foreign Minister Naji Sabri offered a stunning political reversal saying that UN inspectors could return to Iraq immediately and unconditionally. The teams were back in Iraq in late November.

The drill was as straightforward as it was daunting; Iraq would fully declare its weapons of mass destruction, UN inspectors would verify the declarations, and would then supervise destruction. Following that mandated obligation, the UN embargo dating from 1991 would be lifted.

Eight years of the UN inspection process did achieve tangible results, especially under the no-nonsense Australian Director Richard Butler. But the inspectors left Baghdad just before Bill Clinton attacked Iraq in December 1998 and thus there had been no oversight for four years.

In the political lead-up to the Iraq war, the periodic Blix Report sessions were fraught with tightly packed suspense. Blix assumed the role of a kind of diplomatic Delphic oracle, on whose carefully chosen words would prove the hinge of fate for world peace. While the oracle never claimed to discover the elusive smoking gun, his statements to the Security Council while equivocal, nonetheless never gave the final benediction that Baghdad had disarmed.

HereÕs what Blix told the Security Council on 27 January; ÒOne of the three important questions before us today is how much might remains undeclared and intact from before 1991; and possibly, thereafter; the second question is what, if anything, was illegally produced after 1998, when the inspectors left; and the third question is how it can be prevented that any weapons of mass destruction be produced or procured in the future.Ó

While then stating that on practical procedures, ÒIraq has on the whole cooperated well so far with UNMOVIC in this field,Ó he then enumerated a virtual laundry list of WMD which Iraq could still have.

Relating to the publicized case of 122mm chemical rockets discovered outside Baghdad, Blix warned, ÒThey could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets not resolve, but rather points to the issue of several thousand of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.Ó Hmm, the good Doctor said this in January!

Even after the overthrow of SaddamÕs regime by the Anglo/American military forces, Blix offered to have UN teams return to Iraq to continue searching for the elusive weapons. Now using the flawed analogy of a witch hunt, Blix told BBC Radio that in the Middle Ages people were convinced there were witches, and so they found them. Actually in what appears to be a smoldering personal vendetta against Tony Blair and George W. Bush concerning the countdown to the Iraq war, Hans Blix seems to have engaged in his own Òspin cycle,Ó or willfully led a wild goose chase.

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

Monday, Sept. 22, 2003




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