[Peace-discuss] Blix on Iraq weapons claims

[patton paul]

Here's an article on Hans Blix latest comments on Bush/Blair Iraq weapons
claims.
-Paul P.


 Blix Attacks 'Spin and Hype' of Iraq Weapon Claims
by Dominic Evans


LONDON - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Thursday
attacked the "spin and hype" behind U.S. and British allegations of banned
Iraqi weapons used to justify war against Saddam Hussein.


Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said the US-led war on Iraq
was not justified. (AFP/File/Laura Boushnak)
Blix, who said this week he believed Iraq had destroyed its weapons of
mass destruction 10 years ago, told BBC radio that the United States and
Britain "over-interpreted" intelligence about Baghdad's weapons programs.

In response, the British government said it stood by the case it had made
to the public for going to war.

Blix compared London and Washington to medieval witch-hunters, saying they
convinced themselves on the basis of evidence which was later discredited,
including forged documents about alleged attempts to buy uranium for
nuclear weapons.

"In the Middle Ages when people were convinced there were witches they
certainly found them. This is a bit risky," said Blix, whose inspectors
left Iraq on the eve of war in March after just a few months of
inspections.

Blix said a pre-war British dossier on Iraqi weapons "leads the reader to
conclusions that are a little further-reaching" than was the case.

"What in a way stands accused is the culture of spin, the culture of
hyping.... Advertisers will advertise a refrigerator in terms that we
don't quite believe in, but we expect governments to be more serious and
have more credibility," he said.

"BEST ASSESSMENT"

Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said a recent report on the
September dossier by parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee had
concluded that the dossier was "the best assessment of the intelligence
available at the time."

That committee, however, also concluded that parts of intelligence were
presented in a misleading way.

Allegations in the dossier that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological
weapons at 45 minutes' notice have come under scrutiny at a judicial
inquiry, which has revealed that the claim referred only to short-range
battlefield munitions, not long-range missiles as was widely believed.

Before ordering the invasion that toppled Saddam, President Bush talked of
an imminent threat posed by Iraqi weapons as a prime justification for
war.

Blair put Saddam's alleged weapons program at the heart of his case for
supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March.

But five months after Saddam's overthrow, no banned weapons have been
found.

Bush and Blair have said the search will take time and that evidence will
eventually be uncovered.

"The patience that they require for themselves now was not anything that
they wanted to give to us," said Blix, whose inspectors were forced to
pull out of Iraq in March after just three and a half months' work.

He said the few "minor things" which his teams had uncovered in Iraq were
more likely to have been "debris from the past" than "tips of the iceberg"
of an existing weapons program.

Blix's comments have been echoed by his successor Demetrius Perricos, who
told Reuters it was becoming "more and more difficult to believe stocks
(of WMD) were there" in Iraq.

Additional reporting by Katherine Baldwin

Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd

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