To you too, Hans. Auf Wiedersehen!
Posted on 06/30/2003 3:21:57 PM PDT by Brian S
June 30
— By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Days after his 75th birthday, Hans Blix formally ended his tumultuous three-year quest for Iraq's chemical, biological and ballistic missiles, insisting he was just a lawyer doing an apolitical job.
"It's sort of sad to be leaving New York because I like New York. I was here in my youth and I have spent three thrilling years here with a lot of difficult but also rewarding work," he told reporters Monday, his last day at work before retiring to his native Sweden.
But little concerning Iraq was apolitical and Blix, in his understated way, refrained from gloating about the failure so far of U.S.-led experts to find unconventional weapons after cutting short his teams' searches to less than four months.
But some Schadenfreude -- a word of German origin that means glee at another's misfortune -- seeps through his comments, even on the last day.
"Well we still don't exclude that they can find things but the longer time passes, the less possibility perhaps," said Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).
"But I think we were vindicated in the prudence that we showed. We consistently maintained that unaccounted for is not the same thing as saying things exist. They might exist, they might not exist and I think everything shows that that was wise," he said.
Blix believes Iraq may have destroyed most of its dangerous weapons but then questions aloud why Saddam Hussein did not produce data showing he had disarmed.
He speculated that Saddam might have wanted to create the mystique that he still had weapons of mass destruction -- on the theory that big boys like big toys.
OPENLY CRITICAL
With U.N. inspection teams still barred from helping with searches in Iraq, Blix has become more openly critical of intelligence he received from Washington and other capitals.
He told the Council on Foreign Relations last week he was "not impressed" by some of the evidence presented to the U.N. Security Council by Secretary of State Colin Powell in February. His frequent criticism of Powell, although muted, probably cost UNMOVIC the secretary's goodwill, although Powell was once a defender of U.N. inspections, diplomats say.
Blix chafes at repeated criticism from named and unnamed U.S. officials but went out of his way Monday to say he had "civil relations" with Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
U.S. officials and some former U.N. inspectors believe the former Iraqi government never abandoned its quest for unconventional weapons. President Bush is confident that such arms will be found.
Blix's reports before the war were criticized by the Bush administration for not emphasizing Iraq's lack of cooperation in declaring all its weapons. His inspectors were never able to confirm the exact amount of weaponry destroyed.
A private man, Blix had served for 16 years, until 1997, as the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and thought he was retiring to pick mushrooms and blueberries and perhaps write his memoirs.
He and his wife Eva, then a Swedish government adviser on Arctic and Antarctic affairs, had left for Patagonia on a cruise ship for Antarctica in January 2000 when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called.
"I was taken out of the refrigerator, literally," Blix said. He took up the post in March 2000 but his inspectors did not return to Iraq until Nov 27, 2002, and then only because of the threat of American military action.
99% of the people on FR could have done this job for 1/10 of what he made. Bet ya.
Now Hans, don't go using logic like Hussein worried about losing face among the other Arabic nations. Bush told us he had them so we alllll know beyond a shadow of a doubt he had them. We've already found the beans. And you know how dangerous beans can be Hans
Sree Srilling years, eh? Why didn't you re-enlist...afraid the next U.N. Headquarters will be in Cameroon?
As sickening as he is, he weakens the demokrats, he 'sucks up all the oxygen' (Susan Estrich, a certified liberal said that).
Disgusting ol' boy Clinton is the worst thing that could happen to the demokrats in 2004.
To you too, Hans. Auf Wiedersehen!
Now if we could just get rid of the U.N.!!!
The act of being a buffoon; to play the part of an imbecile or incompetent, a moron, as in "He is a total Blix".
Blixed:
A complete washout; compromised; complete failure; useless and insignificant; unconscious incompetence, often caused by genetic defect or political affiliation, as in "After the fall from the bridge, he was Blixed."
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