Blix no good?

Cheetah772

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Hello,

To be honest with you all guys, I get a general feeling that Hans Blix was not trying to give an accurate report on Iraq's compliance with the UN inspections.

I believe that Blix was trying to balance between Bush administration's hawkish stance and the rest of world trying to avoid any kind of justification for a war with Iraq.

Seriously, I think Blix is opposed to any war with Iraq, and is clearly trying to use his political clout as the chief UN inspector in Iraq (not of his own agency) to push through a diplomatic solution rather than giving the flat-out facts that Iraq is not cooperating fully.

To me, Blix is more of a politically correct animal rather than a genuine UN inspector wishing to find out the real truth about Iraq's level of compliance.

Dan
 

markoy

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Originally posted by Cheetah772
Hello,

To be honest with you all guys, I get a general feeling that Hans Blix was not trying to give an accurate report on Iraq's compliance with the UN inspections.

I believe that Blix was trying to balance between Bush administration's hawkish stance and the rest of world trying to avoid any kind of justification for a war with Iraq.

Seriously, I think Blix is opposed to any war with Iraq, and is clearly trying to use his political clout as the chief UN inspector in Iraq (not of his own agency) to push through a diplomatic solution rather than giving the flat-out facts that Iraq is not cooperating fully.

To me, Blix is more of a politically correct animal rather than a genuine UN inspector wishing to find out the real truth about Iraq's level of compliance.

Dan
To be honest this is nonsense. What Blix is doing is deliberately staying out of the politics. He is leaving it up to the UN to make the political decisions. Just because he does not give the answer the USA and UK wants does not mean he is not good at his job. He is just refusing to be dragged into a tug-of-war over war so to speak. I admire his courage at not giving in to the intense pressure he must be under to deliver a response favourable to the US and UK. Give that man a gold star.
 

Tzar

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Blix's position is not easy, but I believe he is doing his work properly. I believes he tells the truth when he says he hasn't found yet WMDs, but that does not mean he could not found those in the next few weeks and months as they are progressing in the inspections.

The situation is not a black-and-white one, Cheetah. It's not like Bagdad has told the inspectors to go to hell and shut down the doors of the country in their faces. Yes, there are instances of less than 100% cooperation from Iraq, but it's difficult to argue convincingly that this lack of cooperation is profound and deep. As I said in another post, Iraq seems to cooperate only when extreme pressure is applied on it (and this is annoying, they should be proactive) but at the end of the day, they usually agree to the inspectors' requests.

You won't see Blix coming to the Security Council to declare that a blatant and total act of defiance has been done by Bagdad. It won't happen since defiance by Bagdad will remain small and limited, because Saddam's got a survivor instinct, and this instinct is telling him to greatly reduce and minimize the amount of resistance to the inspectors at this point.

This means that everybody will have to make his own judgement about the situation because the facts will never be clear enough for everybody to agree on in a general consensus.

I personally believe Iraq is in material breech. I believe they still have stocks of chemical weapons that they are moving across the country. These stocks are probably small, but they still have them nonetheless. It's well-known that Iraq owned WMD in the past, and it is not sure if the inspectors were able to destroy all of them before they were booted out in 1998. I think Saddam managed to keep some, or even to get new ones in the meantime.

But that is only my personal opinion and feeling, and I don't have a concrete proof to show.
 

Deltapooh

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Cheetah,

Blix is not the problem. He delivered his own perspective. I do believe his comments were so carefully worded, one could question it's integrity. Yet, he doesn't want to be the man that triggers war, and I understand that.

My first response to the speeches delivered after the reports was disgust at other members. However, when I replayed those comments, I realized they were more hot hair, than convicted political statements.

Look at what nations are doing and not just what is being said. If the speeches were anything to go on, the UNSC could pass a resolution condemning US-UK aggression. In political terms, those nations lack of action is an less apparent greenlight for military action. Few countries want to get involved, but most would like to see Saddam go.

Many governments might not want war, but don't love Saddam enough to take any firms steps to stop an invasion. They don't want to get involved, and are simply resisting US efforts to change that. Despite our power, the US and its allies would have to seriously consider backing down in the face of UN Resolution demanding no military action be taken.

Everyone is protecting their own agenda, not Iraq's. The morality questions being raised by some of our allies is simply a front for the more corrupted position they have. Again, don't just look at what someone is saying. You have to read between the lines and analyze what is being done to back up those comments.

In this case, the world is doing little to stop an invasion of Iraq. They just don't want to get involved now or later.
 
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