Oh why did they not believe Hans Blix ....

[RadishTM Veteran]

Now I was reading this article and it's a shame that world leaders did not believe him when he was a former UN weapons inspector and instead went with their intelligence agencies which, frankly - got it all wrong.

I remember when this war first started, and Hans Blix's kept on saying that there was no hard proof of WMD in Iraq, if you want proof - we'll go and check it out, they did and have yet to find any concrete evidence of WMD.

And now Blair and Bush are reaping their decicions for the course of this war. It's a shame this war was based upon exaggerated intelligence from around the world :/

I rarely post here, so take it easy with the 'fact-slamming in the face' :laugh:

Radish?

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Now I was reading this article and it's a shame that world leaders did not believe him when he was a former UN weapons inspector and instead went with their intelligence agencies which, frankly - got it all wrong.

I rarely post here, so take it easy with the 'fact-slamming in the face':laugh:h:

Radish?

You won't get any slamming from me. Blix knew what was up.

The US and the UK were a little too quick to believe their network of paid informants that they ignored the man with the facts. They forget that paid informants tend to tell you what YOU want to hear rather than what they really know.

Those roving chemical munitions factories that Colin Powell outlined shouldn't be that hard to find now the the country is under US control unless they never were there to begin with.

[Osiris]

ah the whole thing was sketchy

bush distrubs me, what did he say on his live interview yesterday "Im a war president or something"?? what the hell is that crap..

Dissapointing they didnt listen to him, but good to see he was right that there wasnt weapons there, his reputation truly is above reproach

[poind]

Saddam certainly caused a lot of a mess to a lot of others.

The U.N. formally authorized but its second war ever against Iraq in 1991. Saddam had already clearly had and massively used WMDs. Nevertheless, the U.N. was eventually content leaving him in power assuming he'd be shortly overthrown, and thereafter went through 17 resolutions against him, and tolerated rejected weapons inspectors, regular firing on planes patrolling no-fly zones, etc. Saddam himself never signed an admission of "surrender".

Following 9/11, Saddam's WMD interests and ongoing resistance of the U.N. were no longer acceptable risks. The guy had been on "probation" for over a decade, and burden was on *him* to fully and totally prove himself "innocent", *not* play games. The U.N. continued to fumble around as it didn't like confrontation, and U.S. leadership had some risk assessments to make.

The U.S., especially given at least implied claims/photos that it knew of ongoing WMD's, *did* need to be able to actually turn up stuff in a reasonable time if it decided it had to finally go into the country on its own. WMD's may yet be turned up in coming months / years, but yes, for what was occurring, the U.S. really really needed to turn up more concretely if at all possible to not have justification questioned.

ANYWAY, ultimately, the lesson learned??? When the world / U.N. finds it necessary to authorize war against a particular country / dictator as it so very very very rarely does, "leaders" have *no* business remaining in power once such a war is "won".

There has been confusion across the board as the U.N. passes resolutions, the U.S. deals with its intelligence info, countries put their own interests over U.N. principles, etc. It *ALL* could have been, and should have been, prevented had Saddam been removed from power following the formally-authorized 1991 Gulf War when the opportunity was present.

All the complications that have happened since would not have occurred had, say, the U.N. simply found Saddam in violation of cease-fire agreements and had the courage to confront such rather than just pass 17 resolutions saying they "disapproved".

It's a shame this "war" had to occur with thousands of Iraqi's murdered in the last decade, etc., when Saddam very justifiably should have been out of power and Iraq "rebuilt" with U.N. assistance over a decade ago.

Personally, as far as I'm concerned, the U.N. does need to realize that its resolutions, wars, and whatever aren't worth one heck of a lot if they can't practically back them up. Saddam had *zero* reason to be tolerated at all this last decade, and in the meantime, he's quite succeeded in humiliating the U.S., the U.N., and anyone else with any ties to him, friend or foe.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Saddam certainly caused a lot of a mess to a lot of others.

Really long post clipped...

You're entitled to that interpretation of history.

My interpretation is that if the USA had the political will to remove Saddam Hussein from office then it could have been done in 1992 or any time since. Canada, English, France, Russia all wanted him out of there and it wouldn't have taken much cooperation from the US through the United Nations to get it done. The problem is that the US, the world's only superpower, chooses time and time again to minimize the effectiveness of the UN since the US feels it gives too much power to 3rd world nations and not enough of a focus on US interests.

[poind]

Really long post clipped...

You're entitled to that interpretation of history.

My interpretation is that if the USA had the political will to remove Saddam Hussein from office then it could have been done in 1992 or any time since.? Canada, English, France, Russia all wanted him out of there and it wouldn't have taken much cooperation from the US through the United Nations to get it done.? The problem is that the US, the world's only superpower, chooses time and time again to minimize the effectiveness of the UN since the US feels it gives too much power to 3rd world nations and not enough of a focus on US interests.

Suppose you're entitled to this "interpretation" of "history" if you want.

The U.N. was the one, with fully authorized war in 1991, that had "authority" to remove Saddam from power following the Gulf War or any time since via their 17 resolutions.

For global stability, or at least belief of such, the U.S. tried to defer to the U.N. and just patrol no-fly zones and the like, trusting U.N. weapons inspectors, resolutions, etc., for over a decade. The U.S. trusted places like the U.N. to handle, say, the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The problem is that places like Russia and France put their contracts with Iraq over global issues/U.N. concerns, and time and time again the U.N. is corrupted by countries manipulating it for self-interest with little or no concern for long-term consequences. Countries that aren't "democratic" themselves are given "democratic" voting rights at the U.N., at the least, which doesn't work.

If the U.N. wanted Saddam removed after formally authorizing war in 1991, it could have done so at anytime for any number of reasons, U.S. around or not.

The problem is that the U.N. can be more irrationally anti-U.S. than it can be focused on developing and reinforcing its own credibility and long-term values and why for the world's sake. It also does have a severe problem with representatives being granted "equal representation" when they do not actually equally represent the countries they're from. The U.N. has no clear leadership or values. At best it has corrupt consensus via its current systems.

[h0ax]

of course you can trust that he's right, he's from sweden after all... ;)

[Laughing-Man]

You people give Blix too much credit. He did not know they had an illegal conventional weapons program until the US started putting pressure on Iraq to have full unfettered inspections. Iraq was supposed to be monitored by the UN after the first Gulf War to make sure they followed the guidelines setup at the end of the war, but apparently they did not because Iraq had hundreds of Al-Samoud 2 missiles in their country. If Blix was clueless about their conventional weapons program then what makes you think he is 100% correct about their WMD program?

Edited February 11, 2004 by jmole

[Hiro P.]

Blix's UN report

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed.

Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable.  Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponised.  Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared.  Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponised.  In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.

-----------------------------

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period.  Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs.  The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes.  In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

------------------------------------

Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.  Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date.  It might still exist.  Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.

------------------------------

As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as imported in Iraq?s submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999.  As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included.  The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax.

-----------------------------------

[Aaron Veteran]

Really long post clipped...

You're entitled to that interpretation of history.

My interpretation is that if the USA had the political will to remove Saddam Hussein from office then it could have been done in 1992 or any time since. Canada, English, France, Russia all wanted him out of there and it wouldn't have taken much cooperation from the US through the United Nations to get it done. The problem is that the US, the world's only superpower, chooses time and time again to minimize the effectiveness of the UN since the US feels it gives too much power to 3rd world nations and not enough of a focus on US interests.

We "obeyed" the will of the UN the first time and only forced a withdrawal and establishment of the no-fly-zones. That was precisely what the UN wanted and we obliged. We are criticized now for not listening to the UN and are criticized for the past when we did listen to them. Just can't win with some people.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

We "obeyed" the will of the UN the first time and only forced a withdrawal and establishment of the no-fly-zones. That was precisely what the UN wanted and we obliged. We are criticized now for not listening to the UN and are criticized for the past when we did listen to them. Just can't win with some people.

I'm just saying that the US could have floated a resultion 8-10 years ago to remove Saddam from power and it likely would have been backed by most nations. It was pretty clear after the first year or so of sanctions that they weren't as effective as people thought they would be.

[Garry]

George Bush wasn't as gung-ho as his son though. He had the Iraqi people rise up against Saddam in '91 - then pulled out of Iraq. Those who rose up and were part of the rebel movement were tortured and killed.

As for WMDs - if anyone ever read the full dossier on Iraq's WMD programme, it was fairly obvious then proof was sketchy at best. Of course, the WMD story was just an 'excuse' to invade and remove Saddam from power. Hell, some of the weapons that Saddam did have were given to him by the Americans at the time of the Iran-Iraq war.

I still wouldn't be surprised if they found WMDs in Iraq. Personally I think the Americans will 'find' them at whichever time is right for George W Bush's reelection campaign.

[Aaron Veteran]

I'm just saying that the US could have floated a resultion 8-10 years ago to remove Saddam from power and it likely would have been backed by most nations. It was pretty clear after the first year or so of sanctions that they weren't as effective as people thought they would be.

I just don't understand how defying the UN 10 years ago would have been acceptable but it was utterly unacceptable this time around.

[Hiro P.]

I just don't understand how defying the UN 10 years ago would have been acceptable but it was utterly unacceptable this time around.

c'mon Aaron, we both know why...because a democrat was in charge back then :yes:

[FearMeAll]

I just don't understand how defying the UN 10 years ago would have been acceptable but it was utterly unacceptable this time around.

cuz the UN is a big joke. Think about it, the entire concept of the UN was based on a failure, The Articles of Confederation. It was a proven cause of disorder and complete ineffiency 200 years before it was created. The idea of having a bunch of world leaders coming together for great ideological goals is just a laugh. Every country is going to look out for itself just like every state was only looking out for itself in the Articles. The only way nations should be getting along is through economic means and trade, not for ideals, they will fail because of human nature.

I know this may sound like blasphemy to many die hard liberals on these boards, and I know you guys have the best intentions and high minded goals, but you need to predicate on the idea that man is a selfish being before coming up with theory. The only way the UN could not be a total joke is if there was a way to change the way mankind is.

But then again, the liberal way of thinking is, "If it's broke, keep putting money into it" while the conservative says, "If it's broke, can it and come up with a new plan"

/end off-topic rant.

[Aaron Veteran]

c'mon Aaron, we both know why...because a democrat was in charge back then :yes:

The question was more rhetorical than literal, rest assured. :)