UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - As the United States and Britain try to explain why they have not found unconventional weapons in Iraq, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix wants the Security Council to utilize a decade of arms research and allow U.N. experts to finish the job.
Blix, who is retiring after his contract ends on June 30, on Thursday gives an oral version of his final report to the council, whose members, including ally Britain, have made clear to the United States they do not consider the inspection commission's work finished in Iraq.
"I would expect this to be his last appearance before the council before he returns to Sweden at the end of June," said Blix's spokesman Ewen Buchanan. "He is making an assessment of all our activities in Iraq in the three months we are there."
But there is little doubt that council members, who will meet in a private session after hearing Blix in an open meeting, will want to discuss the future of his U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC.
IS HE (Paul Krugman) EXAGGERATING?
This time the exaggerations (and the lies and the distortions and the out-of-context quotes and the bogus statistics and all the rest) are in service of the Times' latest "flood the zone" attack on the President Bush -- trying to make it seem that Bush lied about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Krugman states,Please read the rest!"The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history — worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra."
Was Bush lying when he told the public that Saddam was an imminent threat? David Hogberg says "no" on his blog, Cornfield Commentary -- because Bush never said it!