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UNITED NATIONS - 5 December 2005 / www.MaximsNews.com/ A
fierce debate is now raging in
Washington in which the opposition is
accusing Bush & Co of having misled
the US, when they asserted that weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq constituted
a threat that required the country to go
to war.
Some
two hundred thousand men have been sent
to Iraq and by now more than two
thousand American soldiers and tens of
thousands of Iraqis have lost their
lives as a result of an armed action to
eradicate weapons – which did not
exist.
It
is not difficult to understand why this
is painful. The administration is trying
hard to pin the blame on the CIA and
other intelligence units. Vice President
Cheney says that all received the same
(erroneous) information regarding the
weapons, all reached the same
conclusions and all carry the same
responsibility.
What
was the reality?
First,
as regards the aim of the war.
Perhaps
the most important – though least
discussed – aim was to protect the
production in and shipping of oil from
the countries around the Persian Gulf.
Saudi Arabia, with the holiest Muslim
sites, had become a problematic host
country to American armed forces. Iraq, with a US friendly government, could become a good
alternative host to an American military
presence in the area.
Another
– presented – aim was to make Iraq a
democratic and human rights model for
the region. One cannot but support such
an aim and feel that the toppling of
Saddam was a great gain. However, the
aim of promoting human rights has been
overshadowed by the American
mistreatment of prisoners in the old
Saddam prisons. The aim to introduce
democracy by armed force has proved
problematic.
The occupation has strongly
stimulated terror and bloodshed. That an
Iraqi democratic government could hardly
accept American military bases could be
concluded from statements made at a
recent Cairo meeting by Sunni, Shia and
Kurdish leaders that they wanted a
time-table for the American exit from
Iraq.
The
Bush administration must have understood
that the war rationale that would be
easiest to sell would be that the US was
threatened by weapons of mass
destruction.
During the autumn of 2002 and
until the attack on Iraq in the middle
of March 2003 the Bush administration
asserted categorically that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction, prepared a
new nuclear weapon program and
cooperated with Al Qaeda. What evidence
did they have?
Iraq
had stopped UN inspectors during the 90s
as if there had been weapons to conceal.
The accounting of chemical and
biological weapons was deficient.
Aluminum pipe imports were claimed to be
for the enrichment of uranium. A
contract that had surfaced in Italy
between Iraq and Niger regarding the
purchase of uranium oxide was mentioned
by Bush in an address to the US
Congress. Despite the fact that within
the administration there was knowledge
that the document was unreliable.
Was
the political leadership itself
convinced? Perhaps they avoided asking
questions, which could have undermined a
desirable good faith? At a meeting in
the State Department in the autumn of
2002
then Deputy Secretary of Defense,
Wolfowitz, indignantly asked me: “Are
you not convinced that they have weapons
of mass destruction?”
As
we approached the outbreak of the war
the assertions that there were weapons
of mass destruction grew more intense.
They reached a peak in a speech by Colin
Powell in the Security Council. In the
very same period the credibility of the
assertions sank, when the IAEA revealed
that the uranium contract was forged and
that the aluminum tubes were probably
intended for missiles.
No weapons of mass destruction
had been found in any of some 700 UN
inspections, of which several dozens had
been to sites, which the intelligence
agencies had indicated as probable
weapons stores.
The
responsibility for going to war must be
judged against the background of what
the US government knew – or ought to
have understood – in March 2003, when
it actually launched the war. At that
point in time there was hardly any
reason to believe that Iraq was planning
to resume its nuclear weapon program.
The grounds for believing that there
were biological and chemical weapons had
been substantially weakened.
Recently
it was asserted on the American side
that a computer had been stolen in Iran
containing a missile related program
from which it must be concluded that
Iran was preparing to make nuclear
weapons. Who would dare to put faith in
such “evidence” today? In Iraq the US was supported by an “alliance of the
willing”. Are there any states
volunteering the next time the Bush
administration cries wolf?
HansBlix@MaximsNews.com
Dr.
Hans Blix was born in 1928 in Uppsala, Sweden.
He studied at the University of
Uppsala; at Columbia University, where he was
also a research graduate; and at Cambridge
University, where he received his Ph.D.
In
1959, he became Doctor of Laws at the
Stockholm University, and in 1960, was
appointed Associate Professor in International
Law.
He
has an Honorary Doctorate from Moscow State
University (1987) and is a recipient of the
Henry de Wolf Smyth Award (Washington, DC,
1988).
From
1963 to 1976, Dr. Blix was Head of Department
at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and served
as Legal Adviser on International Law.
In 1976, he became Under-Secretary of
State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in
charge of international development
cooperation.
He was appointed Minister for Foreign
Affairs in October 1978.
From
1961 until 1981, he was a member of Sweden's
delegation to the United Nations General
Assembly; and from 1962 to 1978, a member of
the Swedish delegation to the Conference on
Disarmament in Geneva.
He
served as Director General of the
International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981
to 1997.
He
has written several books on subjects
associated with international and
constitutional law and was a leader of the
Liberal Campaign Committee in favour of
retention of the Swedish nuclear energy
programme in the referendum in 1980.
Dr.
Blix was appointed to by the UN
Secretary-General in January 2000 and took up
his duties on 1 March 2000. He is now
the former Executive Chairman of United
Nations Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)
.
Currently
Hans Blix is the Chairman, Weapons of Mass
Destruction Commission
and Director-General Emeritus of the IAEA.
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