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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Here's what Hans Blix had to say about Iraqi cooperation with inspectors - from http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0226blixun.htm:
Blix: UN inspectors Need Few More Months in Iraq
Middle East Online
February 26, 2003
Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said his teams should be given "a few more months" to work in Iraq, in an interview to be published here on Thursday. "Even if Iraq immediately, actively and unconditionally cooperates with us, we would still need a few more months," Blix told the German weekly Die Zeit.
Blix was asked whether he would demand more time for inspections during a report to the United Nations Security Council on March 7. "At the moment it is not even clear whether the Iraqis really want to cooperate. On the other hand this country had eight years of inspections, four years without them, and now 12 weeks with them. Is it the right time to close the door?" said Blix, whose comments were published in German.
Blix said that Baghdad had cooperated "substantially" with his inspectors but added that "Iraq could do more and it would be acknowledged".
A key test will be whether Iraq meets a Blix demand for the destruction by March 1 of the Al-Samoud 2 missiles, found by the UN to be exceeding the allowed range of 150 kilometers (90 miles).
The destruction of these missiles "is not negotiable", Blix told reporters in New York on Tuesday. The head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) said that the authority of the Security Council was "on the line" in enforcing Iraq disarmament and that this task could only be achieved with a credible threat of force.
"We need a united and resolved Security Council," Blix said. He welcomed Germany's decision to abandon its categorical rejection of war against Baghdad even with a UN resolution sanctioning military action.
Germany has now united with France and Russia in calling force "the last resort" in dealing with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Berlin joined the Security Council as a non-permanent member in January for two years and holds the rotating presidency for the month of February.
The Die Zeit interview was conducted after the United States, together with Britain and Spain, presented a draft resolution to the UN on Monday that would pave the way for the use of force.
Blix said that he was convinced that the United States was not actively seeking a war with Iraq. "I am fairly convinced that Washington itself does not want a war," Blix said. "I am talking about (President George W.) Bush and his entire team."
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In Bush's mind, it may not be a lie at all, because he may have been told by his "trusted advisers" that Saddam refused to allow the inspectors in.
Cheney/Wolfowitz/etc. could have easily fed this to the President. He would believe that this was true since he never reads the newspapers or hears opposing views. And this would make his resolve even more "steely" since it makes an excellent justification, whether or not it is actually true.
As long as it fits his simple world-view...
Given Conason's article and the occasional rightist defense among the responding letters, I think there's a further question of significant interest: where do these vague, repeated phrases come from?
Bush himself does not seem to be a calculating off-the-cuff verbalist. In accord with this, he tends to fall back on the same repertory of phrases, or close to, again and again, as Conason's quotes show.
So there's got to be someone back there inside the apparatus, concocting and assaying the phraseology. One imagines intense debate:
--"Is this a lie?"
--"No, because under some non-obvious parse, it can be assigned a metaphorical reading under which it is nearly true."
-- "OK. Start the POTUS on his training schedule."
Or so one imagines. But there literally must be something like this going on, with real people, real training sessions and so on. Who are they? When do they take place? This would seem to be an important aspect of understanding how the administration functions.
Among all the falsehhoods of this maladministration, these have nearly driven me to distraction. The fact that Bush -- "leader of the free world" and commander-in-chief of the most powerful military force in the history of the world -- had twice, in public, in the presence of foreign dignitaries, uttered these statements without any consequences, without any evidence that the media and other national leaders were troubled (or even that very many of them had noticed)was simply intolerable. It's also frustrating beyond belief that we the people have allowed this man to be so completely insulated withint his cocoon, that even compulsive news junkies who are far better informed than the public at large simply have no way of knowing whether this was the most blatant of lies or the most conclusive evidence of criminal negligence imaginable. Not that it matters, really. But thank you for the documentation. I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined this.
And I am completely serious about my inability to determine if Bush lied. Of course I know that he has lied, will lie, and feels entitled to lie if it seems convenient to him. But we also know, from the Downing Street memo and other sources, that Bush was hoping to provoke Sadaam into providing an excuse for the invasion that had been decided upon in advance. I think the inference is inescapable that Bush hoped that Sadaam would not let the U.N. inspectors into Iraq. Is he so out of touch that he never knew what was going on? I don't buy that. But I do wonder if his ingrained habits of self-justification are so strong that he quickly came to believe that what he had wished for -- Sadaam defying the demand to let inspectors in -- was what had actually happened.
Surely even at this late hour it is possible for some Republican politicans who used to have integrity, used to believe the nostrums about putting the country above all else, used to have some principles, to rise to the defense of the Constitution and of real national security and rein in this horror show. Can't any of them see that stopping the Cheney cabal is necessary to avoid multiplying the calamaties we have already produced?
IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST.
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