Blix: Blair Lacked 'Critical Thinking'

[Khephra]

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair lacked "critical thinking" in the run-up to the Iraq war, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said in an interview published Saturday.

Blix told The Guardian newspaper that he was not accusing Blair of acting in bad faith, but said that the prime minister relied heavily on intelligence reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

"What I am saying is that there was a lack of critical thinking," Blix told the newspaper from his home in Stockholm, Sweden.

more..............

Blix said U.N. inspectors ought to have been allowed to continue their work for suspected weapons programs, which could have led to a more accurate analysis of the intelligence being received by Britain and the United States.

"Gradually (the British and U.S. governments) ought to have realized there was nothing," he said. "Gradually they would have found that the defectors' information was not reliable."

more................

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-britain-iraq-blix,0,1118083.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Link to the Guardian's interview

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Saturday March 6

Blair lacked critical thinking, says Blix
By Richard Norton-Taylor and David Leigh

Hans Blix, the UN's former chief weapons inspector, last night delivered a robust critique of Tony Blair's defence of the invasion of Iraq, questioning the prime minister's judgment, especially his response to claims made by the intelligence agencies.
Asked about Mr Blair's admission yesterday that intelligence was not "hard fact", Mr Blix told the Guardian that was precisely how it was presented to the UN in the run-up to war. Britain and the US "were selling it as such", he said.
Mr Blair's claims about his thought processes in the run-up to the war are markedly different from the moment-by-moment picture painted today by Mr Blix in extracts of his memoirs - published exclusively in the Guardian - of his dealings with the prime minister.
Mr Blair yesterday played down his reliance on pre-war intelligence, describing himself as a man haunted by the risk that terrorists and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) might come together one day, but who recognised the limits of intelligence material.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Comment

Dr. Blix, like many who work for the UN, is being diplomatic. It is difficult for many of us to ascribe noble motivations to those who plotted this war. Many of us who marched a year ago did so not as knee-jerk pacifists but as informed citizens who had good reason to suspect that intelligence was being cooked to support a pre-determined action that had little or no justification in fact. That judgment assumes that Bush, Blair and their aides made something other than an honest mistake. They had to know that Saddam was a paper tiger and that, if the situation were left to itself, it would have been resolved without the loss of human life or the expenditure of resources better spent fighting a genuine war against terrorism.

The calculus of the war may have involved political opportunity; Bush's poll numbers went up for a short time and he got to parade around in a costume on the deck of the Lincoln when it wasn't even Halloween. It may have involved a desire to remunerate campaign contributors at the expense of the Iraqi people; the invasion and occupation has accomplished that, if nothing else.

However, it wasn't fought for any of the stated reasons. That, it is certain, is something they knew all along. Those who prosecuted this war do not deserve the benefit of any doubt.

[Just Me]

4. It is time to reveal the "soul" of this governing body,...

,...which is clearly devoid of compassion/empathy for human life, and demonstrates an evil possession by their own greed and power.

[w4rma]

3. This adventure has been a total disaster. (n/t)

[glarius]

5. It was obvious to any discerning person that Bush INTENDED to go to war

no matter what...I don't know how anyone could have missed the signals he was sending out from the beginning....and pathetic Tony Blair went along....