An eye-opener from Blix

What everyone can agree on: We have not found expected WMDs in Iraq. What we should also agree on: Everyone -- the British, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, the UN, us, even Iraqi military -- believed WMDs were in Iraq one year ago.

Given these two conflicting facts, it is telling that the Euro-American left's reflexive instinct is to claim that "Bush/Blair lied." Isn't it the more reasonable thing to ask the question, "What happened to the WMDs?...In Syria? In Iran? Hidden? Distributed to terrorist networks prior to the Coalition invasion?" Why should we assume, and the Euro-American left and the media want us to assume, that there were no WMDs in Iraq in the months leading up to the war? Why shouldn't we be scared out of our wits that Saddam had WMDs, but they are now loose somewhere in the region or in the world?

As I say, it is telling that Euro-American left concludes what they want, rather than taking the prudent, careful, and responsible explanation -- the WMDs were there; they are no longer; that means we better find them.

Mr. Blix acknowledges that he also believed that Iraq had failed for years to comply with its post-Gulf War (1991) obligation to destroy its WMD.

And yet, the other night on O'Reilly, Blix said that by January 2003, he was convinced Iraq had no WMD. How does he reconcile this?

Can't find his Blix with both Hans.

Just like the UN that saw no evidence of a Libyan or Iranian WMD program.

In a very tempered way, I disagree. The Kay report was not negative en toto:

>>Why are we having such difficulty in finding weapons or in reaching a confident conclusion that they do not exist or that they once existed but have been removed? Our search efforts are being hindered by six principal factors:

From birth all of Iraq's WMD activities were highly compartmentalized within a regime that ruled and kept its secrets through fear and terror and with deception and denial built into each program;

Deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation related to weapons programs began pre-conflict and ran trans-to-post conflict;

Post-OIF looting destroyed or dispersed important and easily collectable material and forensic evidence concerning Iraq's WMD program. As the report covers in detail, significant elements of this looting were carried out in a systematic and deliberate manner, with the clear aim of concealing pre-OIF activities of Saddam's regime;

Some WMD personnel crossed borders in the pre/trans conflict period and may have taken evidence and even weapons-related materials with them;

Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in relation to the total conventional armaments footprint and difficult to near impossible to identify with normal search procedures. It is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two car garage;

The environment in Iraq remains far from permissive for our activities, with many Iraqis that we talk to reporting threats and overt acts of intimidation and our own personnel being the subject of threats and attacks. In September alone we have had three attacks on ISG facilities or teams: The ISG base in Irbil was bombed and four staff injured, two very seriously; a two person team had their vehicle blocked by gunmen and only escaped by firing back through their own windshield; and on Wednesday, 24 September, the ISG Headquarters in Baghdad again was subject to mortar attack. <<

What did Kay discover:

>>A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment. <<

Millions of dollars, paid for courtesy of the UN Oil for Corruption Program, overseen by Kofi Annan's son...Ad Nauseum...

DK

Sorry, forgot the link.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html

DK

" How does he reconcile this?"

He said “for years after 1991”.

Blix makes about as much sense as Charlie Manson or...who's that fruitcake who thinks Queen Elizabeth is a drug dealer? But then the same can be said of the Left in general.

When you think about all the people who give serious attention to these ding-a-lings the wonder is that the world's not in worse shape than it is.

bump

I find this article less than useful since it fails to give any specific citations or quotes from Blix's book. If there were such corroborative evidence, I'd expect the WT to print it in CAPS.

Even a page number would help make it more realiable.

bookmark bump

An excellent breakdown. Thank you.