Hans Blix on the terrible mistake of the Iraq war.

[stevenleser]

I've talked a lot about the UN Weapons inspectors angle including a whole segment of my show here http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lesersense/2013/03/04/making-sense-with-steve-leser--iraq-war-special-and-week

Blix confirms many of my assertions including that he himself thought he would find WMD when he went back to Iraq in November of 2002 as most of the world thought that WMD existed in Iraq at that time. But as the inspections went on and sites were visited with no WMD found, the US and UK governments reacted strangely to that news.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/18/opinion/iraq-war-hans-blix/index.html

Hans Blix: Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter
By Hans Blix, Special to CNN
March 19, 2013 -- Updated 0836 GMT (1636 HKT)

The Bush administration certainly wanted to go to war, and it advanced eradication of weapons of mass destruction as the main reason. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has since explained, it was the only rationale that was acceptable to all parts of the U.S. administration.

The WMDs argument also carried weight with the public and with the U.S. Congress. Indeed, in the autumn of 2002 the threat seemed credible. While I never believed Saddam could have concealed a continued nuclear program, I too thought there could still be some biological and chemical weapons left from Iraq's war with Iran. If not, why had Iraq stopped U.N. inspections at many places around the country throughout the 1990s?

On February 11 -- less than five weeks before the invasion -- I told U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice I wasn't terribly impressed by the intelligence we had received from the U.S., and that there had been no weapons of mass destruction at any of the sites we had been recommended by American forces. Her response was that it was Iraq, and not the intelligence, that was on trial.

And during a telephone chat with Tony Blair on February 20, I told the British prime minister that it would be paradoxical and absurd if a quarter of a million troops were to invade Iraq and find very little in the way of weapons. He responded by telling me intelligence was clear that Saddam had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction program.

[spanone]

1. k&r...

[zbdent]

2. Doesn't he realize?

The fact that they did not find non-U.N. sealed (circa 1991) WMDs was absolute proof that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, according to some of the RWers!

[stevenleser]

5. LOL, I think Blix and ElBaradei were behind the President getting the Nobel Peace Prize early in his

Presidency, particularly ElBaradei. I think this was their way of expressing their frustration and anger at 'W' for Iraq. I think that message was received loud and clear.

Too bad it did nothing for the people killed, maimed and whose country was screwed up.

[jerseyjack]

21. --- Obama getting the Nobel peace prize...

now there's a fuckin' joke.

[zbdent]

22. and it's amazing how many RWers are "against" him

when they keep telling us how alike he is to Dumbya ...

[stevenleser]

32. I took it in the spirit intended. As a big upraised middle finger to George W. Bush from the

international community.

And I appreciate it for that.

[dreamnightwind]

48. I look at it

like this: they were looking at Obama through the same glasses many of us were, that early in his presidency. He sounded like a man deserving of the Nobel, he looked the part, he campaigned for the part, he got the job, then he showed up with a pure DLC cabinet and embraced many of the policies of the prior administration. It took awhile for this to all become apparent, and there was and still is a lot of denial about it. So I am not ok with it, he didn't deserve the Nobel, no way.

[FairWinds]

3. The Iraq War Was No Mistake . .

It was quite deliberate and based on a cascade of lies - not only about WMD's.
And yes, it was a violation of the UN Charter, and a crime.

[stevenleser]

4. Blix and ElBaradei are always generous with language. They let the facts speak for them.

You are right of course, and in the US, political discourse without inflammatory language may not play as well, but the rest of the world gets exactly what Blix is saying here.

[xtraxritical]

20. And they did at the time too.

[madfloridian]

19. Amen.

[Babel_17]

6. Rice's comment really goes to the heart of it

It's not about the truth, it's about the truthiness. We were in pain and invading Iraq was going to make that pain go away. Part of our pain was based on madness and for a time the invasion made the voices in our head go away.

"We're all neo-con's now" as Chris Matthews said. Like in a room full of insane people, one personality had become dominant.

Not to go off topic but I think much of this is always going to come back to the role the media played. They enabled and pushed the lies, they enabled and pushed the mad invasion.

[ananda]

16. So-called "pain" is no excuse for losing your humanity.

..

[abelenkpe]

24. +1000

[Babel_17]

41. The mindset of aggressive neo-cons who believe in american exceptionalism no matter the circumstance

For those Forever War types the rest of the world is a battlefield allowing them "the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope".

[Mnpaul]

45. and then there is Rumsfeld

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld

[Babel_17]

50. Give him a break, a lot of people fumble for words when ...

trying to remember the quote by Jim Morrison/Ray Manzarek.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/17/rock-doors-between/

"There are things known, and things unknown, and in between are the Doors."

[markiv]

7. as long as there is a MIC

there will be wars that are a mistake, at least for the rest of us

[markiv]

8. mainstream media shoved that war down our throats with propaganda, starting in 2002 nt

[stevenleser]

10. The MSM missed it on Iraq completely, particularly starting in Jan 2003.

What I don't understand is why the MSM wasn't focused on the reports coming from Blix and ElBaradei. The entire world had spent a year getting the Weapons Inspectors back into Iraq and then the media lost sight of them.

If the media had only concentrated on the reports (of 0 WMD found in on the ground inspections) from ElBaradei and Blix in January, February and the final report on March 7, there was a chance war could have been prevented. Not a big chance, but a chance.

[markiv]

12. who owns NBC?

think they wanted to 'prevent' it?

'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”


Upton Sinclair

[stevenleser]

13. They weren't the only ones who missed the weapons inspectors angle. Even non-mainstream media missed

it. Even today, I seem to be the only one talking about the weapons inspectors and the timeline with them.

To me, that is THE issue. That is the smoking gun but it is like pulling teeth to get anyone to look at it. If Blix hadn't penned this article himself, no one besides me would have talked about it even now.

[Babel_17]

17. I suspect that back channels were used

by the administration, etc., wherein they swore on a stack of bibles that the weapons were there. They swore this to the heads of the MSM, the ones who's lead is followed by other top editors.

The heads of the MSM were taken in and have no appetite for seeing an investigation as to how the ball was dropped.

[olegramps]

9. I especially despise Condoleeza Rice for her role in the tragedy. She is arrogant.

[stevenleser]

11. She was willing to do anything and say any lie for Bush/Cheney. She was the perfect loyal servant.

She is loyal to this day. If I didn't know she had a PhD, I would write her off as stupid. She can't be THAT stupid. She has to have known, so no, she isn't stupid, she is evil.

My only real philosophical question on Condi is how far would she have gone if asked. What crimes would have been too much for her.

[DhhD]

15. I thought her family was in the oil business for many years before, and during the Iraq War.

[stevenleser]

30. Do you have a link? The only thing I have ever seen is that her dad was a basketball coach.

Thanks

[tblue37]

44. Considering that an oil tanker was named after her, I

would consider it likely that she has some ties to Big Oil.

[Egalitarian Thug]

49. She headed Chevron's committee on public policy before going to work for shrub. n/t

[Hissyspit]

14. Blix had plenty of evidence they weren't there before Nov. 2002.

And most of the world didn't think he had them. That's revisionism.

[stevenleser]

27. No, YOUR take is revisionism. He has been saying the same thing all along, as has the world.

Name a number and I will show you world leaders who thought Iraq had WMD in the later portion of 2002.

For some reason, there are folks like you who are invested in a fake version of events to push some sort of agenda. All one has to do is see the statements at the time of the 15 members of the UN Security Council in November of 2002 as they came together to issue resolution 1441. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1441

99% of the worlds governments and leaders thought Iraq had WMD in November of 2002. That is the truth and it is supported by their actual statements at the time.

[Hissyspit]

42. You didn't say most of the world's governments and leaders

Last edited Tue Mar 26, 2013, 08:07 PM - Edit history (1)

You said most of the world.

That's not the same thing. Most of the world had doubts or no opinion at all. That's what I was referring to as "revisionism." Maybe it was just bad wording on your part.

Let me be clear. I am not trashing Blix here, I was well aware of him doing right at the time, but Blix was well aware, no matter his personal feelings or opinion, of the doubts raised before Nov. '02 by Ritter and others. I would say I was 90% sure.

Go look at the wording again.

In November, I was telling my students (many of them military members at Fort Bragg "You know they're not going to find any WMD in Iraq, don't you?&quot Those were my exact words; I remember them well. That is the core of my "agenda."

[bigbrother05]

18. Saw Blix speak in Germany not long after the war started

He was the guest speaker at an official German-American group in Heidelberg. Lots of local leaders and US military in audience, but the place was packed and watched in an overflow, SRO area with video feed. His message has changed very little, just more hard evidence to back his belief in how wrong the government was to go in.

His talk was well received and really brought home how far from the truth we had been led. Know that many of the military were connected with the European Army HQ, but there was no refutation expressed and no one walked out.

Not often able to hear personally the first draft of history as it is being written.

[valerief]

23. Iraq War agenda

> Loot Treasury
> Erode rights
> Loot Treasury some more
> Repeat until sated

[stupidicus]

25. http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/yellowcake.asp

there's wmd, and then there's wmd.

In evaluating who believed what individually or country-wise prior to the reintroduction of inspectors as a result of UNSC res 1441 (which came a month after the Iraq AUMF) it's critically important to determine specifically what they believed, given that the likelihood of the war being sold absent any nuclear threat from them were practically nil. Another "Desert Fox" maybe, but a full scale invasion and occupation? I think not.

DEBATEDISTORTED: THEINFLATION OF THENUCLEAR THREAT As former intelligence analyst and National Security Council staffer Kenneth M.Pollack has argued, Iraq’s alleged nuclear program “was the real linchpin of the BushAdministration’s case for an invasion.”41Indeed, a recent scholarly study found that manymembers of Congress “gave the nuclear threat as the main or one of the main reasons for their votes” supporting the war resolution in October 2002.42Yet, it now seems virtuallycertain that the administration publicly exaggerated the status of the Iraqi nuclear program.Officials also strategically manipulated their pre-war rhetoric about the Iraqi threat so as tomislead the general public and mass media. This often meant, for instance, blurring certainkinds of policy distinctions that would otherwise have suggested greater caution in the pathway to war. In many cases, moreover, it meant emphasizing the strong certainty rather than the real ambiguity about key evidence and thus implying the worst about the Iraqi threat. http://www.academia.edu/881665/Deliberating_Preventive_War_The_Strange_Case_of_Iraqs_Disappearing_Nuclear_Threat

CLINTON: Good evening.

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

For example, there are reasons for this comment on the part of Blix "While I never believed Saddam could have concealed a continued nuclear program, I too thought there could still be some biological and chemical weapons left from Iraq's war with Iran.", which pretty much mirrors the pov of many if not most of us that opposed the war.

In the effort to give individual dems the Pontius Pilate water in terms of their roles prior to and in the wake of UNSC res 1441, and the countries "that believed" as well, an examination of the evidence in support of the potential for an active nuke program alone is the only thing that really matters, not whether they thought he had leftovers from earlier days, or indeed, was keeping biological/chemical stockpiles fresh in some measure.

The real history, according to the president, is that Iraq was a threat that had to be confronted in a post-Sept. 11 world, and that both parties accepted the administration's case for war. One key element of that case was the suggestion that Saddam Hussein had — or would soon have — the deadliest weapons imaginable.
In the fall and winter of 2002, the president and other top administration officials used stark language to help Americans imagine the dangers. "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud," Mr. Bush said in his State of the Union address in January 2003.Two months later, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice used the very same words to describe the threat. And Vice President Dick Cheney publicly alleged that Saddam Hussein "has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
Critics Unimpressed by White House Claims
Outside the administration, there was widespread belief that Iraq possessed biological and chemical weapons, but less confidence on the nuclear question. The U.S. intelligence community was deeply divided over the issue. And, despite months of searching, U.N. inspectors — both before and after the invasion — failed to find any weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5024408

Any commentary by dems prior to or in the wake of UNSC res 1441 that voiced a level of certainty rivaling that of Bush's on the nuke weapons programs (like bombing nuclear program facilities that didn't exist as we know in 1998) cannot be granted immunity from the charge of irresponsibility or divorced from participation in the selling of the war imo, if for no other reason due to ignorance or the enabling silence always is.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Report_Powell_hits_Cheney_on_manupulation_0412.html

If keyboard warriors like me can study and cry foul as a result of it on the nuke questions and the critical role they played in the march to war the AUMF facillitated, surely all the smart guys we elected, dems and repubs alike, could have and should have slowed that march down with no votes until something more closely approximating "imminency" was established. This is no doubt why the push for the Iraq AUMF came first, with UNSC res 1441 second, which reeks of a cart before the horse situation to me. Maybe they didn't think Bush would lie us into war, or boot the inspectors before they could show the "flaws" in the intelligence, but it was certainly their job to include that in their calculation of the most important decision they can ever possibly make. This is why I've long contended that the Clinton efforts prior to Bush's best explain both the yes votes from dems and the level of public support for the war that resulted, regardless of the motivation for them like sanction preservation as opposed to invasion and occupation, etc. The potential for/the spectre of a nuclear threat was kept alive throughout the BC admin and beyond as a result, and were certainly exploited quite energetically by Bush and his lying crew if nothing else.

Bush bears the full responsibility for the war crime his war of aggression was and is, but the idea that the dems had no role whatsoever in creating the conditions conducive for that criminal act to take place, and therefore that slice of responsibility -- which my reading of your efforts indicates is the case you seem to be arguing -- will remain uncompelling and unconvincing to many of us.

But do keep trying. That's the case being made by most of us against the dems, not that they, like Bush, are war criminals as a result, or are directly complicit in that crime.

[Jackpine Radical]

26. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and

you have to remember to distinguish between the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns, taking care not to confuse either with the unknown knowns or the known knowns.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. Even if Saddam had had WMD it was still none of our business.

Just as it is none of our business that Israel, North Korea, China, Russia, France, Britain, Pakistan, India, and Brazil have nukes.

What is our business is that we have the largest number of nukes and have been the only country to use them.

[stevenleser]

29. Not correct in this case. The UN said it was every other country's business.

That was the consequence of Iraq's unprovoked war of aggression on Kuwait. They lost part of their sovereignty as codified in various UN Resolutions. I agree with that. I think if a country engages in an unprovoked war of aggression or commits other war crimes, crimes against humanity or various other international crimes, the UN has the right to step in and pass resolutions that contain sanctions that impinge on their sovereignty.

But here is the thing, if the WMD were asserted as the way in which Iraq was in breach of those resolutions, and the UN Weapons Inspectors did not find any after inspecting all the sites they were fed by US and UK intelligence, as well as all the sites that were WMD sites in 1991, and were getting adequate cooperation and did not see any evidence of Iraqi attempt to move weapons or evade them, then there is no way the US can say we invaded to fulfill UN resolutions on WMD.

That is the key. That's why I keep talking about that.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

31. If, in fact, it was every other country's business why didn't Lesotho invade Iraq?

Or, Nepal?

And, why haven't we invaded China, North Korea, Brazil, or France?

The politicians (in this case, the Bush cabal with aid of some Democrats) erected a bogeyman, waved the flag, and sent in the troops. Which is aggression against a country that posed no threat to us.

[stevenleser]

33. Simple answer? If the Weapons inspectors weren't let back in, they could have.

The terms that Iraq had to abide by were what was required of them by the cease fire at the end of the first gulf war. The other side of that is, if Iraq violated those terms, the cease fire was no longer in effect and hostilities from the first gulf war, which were UN sanctioned, could be resumed at any time by any UN member nation seeking to force Iraq to obey the applicable UN resolutions.

The Bush cabal, in fact, argues this point in terms of trying to assert the war that began in 2003 was not an illegal one.

The problem for them is, the UN Weapons Inspectors WERE let back in and they did not find any weapons that violated the cease fire resolutions. So the resolutions were not violated and the cease fire WAS in effect with no UN approval for hostilities.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. The problem is, now, that they remain unindicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Nor do I expect them to be indicted for their crimes there or in Afghanistan.

[stevenleser]

40. We have to keep fighting on that score. I have not given up.

I will not give up until they are on trial in the Hague.

[madokie]

47. I'm with you 100%

The day is coming that that very thing will happen and its getting closer and closer with each passing day.

[Rex]

34. It was quite simple, the UN inspectors told the BFEE

exactly the opposite of what they wanted to hear. And despite this, they decided to brush aside Blix and his teams and start the war anyway. So criminal and so wrong that I cannot even fathom the depths of evil needed to produce a faux war based on faux evidence. The dead bodies were not faux.

And Condi actually had it backwards, Iraq wasn't on trial the US was with world opinion. Iraq was NEVER a threat to the United States and everyone on the planet knew that. When the U.N. weapons inspectors told the world there were no WMD, everyone believed them. When the BFEE went and illegally invaded Iraq, everyone in the world knew it was wrong.

And everyone still does. NO amount of revisionist history will change that. Much to Cheney and Roves chagrin.

[stevenleser]

35. Well said. nt

[Rex]

37. Thank you, keep up the good fight!

Remember when they said Saddam was going to send drones to America loaded with biological and chemical agents? I nearly fell out of my chair - that was when I knew the M$M would do ANYTHING to help GWB get his war on. Such a disgrace to real journalists everywhere!

[stevenleser]

38. I remember my response on my blog to that was, with the no fly zones in place? Not possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones

US and UK aircraft were flying combat air patrol missions over these entire areas 24x7. No way was Iraq going to launch any kind of aircraft or drone attack with these no fly zones in place. The Iraqi aircraft or drones would have been shot down immediately and that assumes they would have time to get off the ground with satellites and radar keeping close watch on the airports and bases.

[Rex]

39. THANK YOU!

For pointing that out! We gutted Iraq of any real fighting power in Gulf War I and the restrictions put in place by Bill Clinton for 10 years. THAT is why I NEVER once bought the line of bullshit!

[daleo]

43. Bush/Blair et al no more made a "mistake" about WMD in Iraq

Than tobacco companies made a "mistake" when they said smoking wasn't a deadly addiction. Bush/Blair et al knew they were lying. Furthermore, they knew that they would never face justice because the powers that be in the Western World would never prosecute one of their own over a mere illegal war.

[madokie]

46. Hang 'm high

comes readily to mind