Posted on 01/30/2004 12:39:02 AM PST by fdsa2
STOCKHOLM: Contrary to recent US claims that its war on Iraq forced Libya to give up its nuclear weapons program, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Thursday that diplomacy should be given most of the credit.
"I think the dialogue in Libya started before (the war)," Blix said, speaking in Stockholm at the first meeting of a new international commission on weapons of mass destruction, of which he is chairman.
"If the Iraqi affair injected a concern in Libya and Iran and North Korea... I really don’t know," he added. "One could (instead) say that the Libyan case shows that you can through diplomacy and through sanctions and through other means obtain a voluntary renunciation of weapons." Blix’s comments were sparked by US President George Bush’s claims last week that the war in Iraq forced Libya to suddenly announce late last year that it was giving up its nuclear weapons program.
"Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not," Bush said in his annual State of the Union speech to the US Congress. Blix, a former Swedish diplomat who was charged with searching for weapons of mass destruction in the 15 weeks leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, was assigned to lead the new Swedish-financed commission on WMD last year.
The independent commission, made up of 15 members from 15 different countries, will work through 2005 on finding ways of limiting the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as on ways of disarming countries that already have such weapons.
Other commissioners agreed with Blix’s criticism of the US claims. "If we look back on states which during the 1990s walked away from the idea of developing weapons of mass destruction ... there were six of them (and) none of them was forced," said Alyson Bailes, the British director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
"It happened by a shift of the pattern of profit... all of them were moving towards democracy and (better) relations with their neighbours... The evidence is... that this is the normal way forward," he said.
"It would seem to me a little against reason, just because of one instance we have had, suddenly to conclude that military pressure is the only way to de-proliferate," she added.
The commission also discussed former US weapons inspector David Kay’s claim this week that "we were all wrong" about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. "Everyone was not wrong, but no one was right," Blix said, referring to his inspection work in Iraq. We never "said that there was evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But we didn’t exonerate Iraq. We didn’t say there aren’t any weapons."
While a number of the commissioners had harsh words for the US-led war in Iraq, they insisted on the independent nature of the commission and on the wide span of its mandate, which covers state and non-state actors, traditional weapons of mass destruction, weapon delivery systems and even the weaponization of space.
"I think it’s extremely important, not only for political reasons, but for intellectual... honesty that we do not narrow our agenda," Bailes said.
The "look what we did to your neighbour"-argument was probably not entirely unsucessful.
Pakistani source of the news?
I have seen the piece in Swedish newspapers and the problem is that this is going to travel around the globe today.
ts
Hey, Qadafi...we got your diplomacy...right here!
Or to borrow a line from that great philosopher, Goldberg..."Who's next?!?!?!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.