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All FReepers, Lurkers, Protest Warriors and Patriots are invited to join us in giving former U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix the welcome he deserves when he speaks at VCU’s Siegel Center on Thursday, April 22, 2004 at 7:30 p.m. Inspector Gadget is promoting his new book, “Disarming Iraq”, which coincidentally will be on sale at the VCU bookstore that very same day. His appearance is funded by a grant from the NEH (National Endowment for Humanities). That’s right, our tax dollars are going to this man who called his American detractors in Washington bastards. And then there is the...

Iraq on verge of civil war: BlixWed Apr 07 2004 20:12:14 ET PARIS, April 8 (AFP) - "The country is on the verge of civil war today. The majority of Iraqis are certainly happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein, but they are all against the American occupation, which is resented as a humiliation," Blix told the Le Parisian daily. Worse, the United States hasn't stationed enough troops in the country to maintain order and prevent attacks so "Iraq has become a machine producing terrorism." US President "George (W.) Bush, who has presented this war as part of the 'War...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The costs of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) have outweighed the benefits of removing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told a Danish newspaper. "It's positive that Saddam and his bloody regime is gone, but when one weighs the costs, it's clearly the negative aspects that dominate," Blix told daily Jyllands-Posten in an interview. The Swedish diplomat has criticized the United States and Britain for going to war without U.N. approval rather than allowing his team to continue its hunt for banned weapons. In the interview, Blix said...

Hans Blix, that honoree of NewsMax.com's Deck of Weasels, says the people of Iraq were better off under the mass-murdering dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. "What's positive is that Saddam and his bloody regime is gone, but when figuring out the score, the negatives weigh more," the former chief U.N. weapons inspector was quoted as saying today in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. "That accounts for the many casualties during the war and the many people who still die because of the terrorism the war has nourished," the Swede complained. "The war has liberated the Iraqis from Saddam, but the costs...

Q: Your new book, ''Disarming Iraq,'' recounts your futile search for weapons as the former chief United Nations weapons inspector. Yes, President Bush and Tony Blair were convinced there was something there. They were convinced there were witches. You yourself initially believed there were weapons! Only later did you change your mind. Yes, I, too, believed there were weapons. I began to be skeptical when we went to sites that were given to us by U.S. intelligence and we found nothing. They said this is the best intelligence we have, and I said, if this is the best, what is...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United Nations' top two weapons experts said Sunday that the invasion of Iraq a year ago was not justified by the evidence in hand at the time.</p> <p>"I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart," Hans Blix, who oversaw the agency's investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."</p>

<p>Hans Blix has pounded the final nail in the coffin of left-wing bilge that has despicably charged President Bush and his administration with lying about intelligence on WMD in Iraq. In fact, in his new book, "Disarming Iraq," 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.</p>

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The invasion of Iraq has polarized the Middle East and may have worsened the threat of terrorism, former United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix charged on Thursday. On a tour of the United States to promote his book, "Disarming Iraq," Blix criticized U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for engaging in a "witch hunt" to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq one year ago. In a speech sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Blix listed the negatives he believes have resulted from the war: polarized societies in the Middle East,...

<p>Hans Blix, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, said Wednesday that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq violated international law.</p> <p>Speaking at a Berkeley news conference in advance of Friday's one-year anniversary of the attack on Iraq, Blix referred to the U.N. Charter and said a state may attack another state if attacked or if imminently threatened by an attack. However, he added, the evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - - particularly nuclear weapons -- was not sufficient to justify an invasion.</p>

<p>LONDON, March 7 (UPI) -- The United Nation's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq suggested Sunday the United States and Britain have exaggerated the threat of terrorism.</p> <p>Hans Blix was responding to Prime Minister Tony Blair's passionate speech last week in defense of the Iraqi conflict, the London Telegraph reported.</p>

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Tuesday likened the runup to the war in Iraq to a witch hunt, and argued that the subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction would dent the public's faith in the U.S. and British governments. "The governments were like the witch hunters of past centuries. They were so convinced that there were witches in Iraq that every black cat became proof of it," Blix said in Barcelona where he was honored by the United Nations Association of Spain. "The tendency was to view any evidence in a...

TONY BLAIR'S spin doctors are finding it simple to deal with the latest spate of lurid allegations by convicted Australian con-man Peter Foster. Confronted with Foster's titillating hints of financial and sexual sleaze in Downing Street, the spinners can dismiss the threat to the prime minister's reputation by pointing to Foster's past record and his current need to promote the value of his memoirs. But Foster does apparently have copies of some 5,000 computer files and e-mails which will figure in a court case in London behind closed doors tomorrow and the Hutton enquiry dramatically revealed the way in which...

<p>LONDON (Reuters) - George W. Bush and Tony Blair probably knew they were exaggerating the threat from Iraq when they were making the case for war, according to former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix.</p> <p>The U.S. president and the British prime minister ignored the few caveats in reports from intelligence services on Iraq's nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs, he writes in his account of the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion.</p>

LONDON : The world is overestimating the dangers of global terrorism, especially when compared with a possible greater threat posed by environmental risks, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Sunday. "I think we still overestimate the danger of terror," Blix told BBC television. "There are other things that are of equal, if not greater, magnitude, like the environmental global risks," he said without being more specific. Blix was speaking after British Prime Minister Tony Blair had given an impassioned defence of his decision to back the US-led war against Iraq given the threat of global terrorism. In one...

<p>LONDON (AP) Prime Minister Tony Blair lacked ''critical thinking'' in the run-up to the Iraq war, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said in an interview published Saturday.</p> <p>Blix told The Guardian newspaper that he was not accusing Blair of acting in bad faith, but said that the prime minister relied heavily on intelligence reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.</p>

Blair lacked critical thinking, says Blix Hans Blix, the UN's former chief weapons inspector, last night delivered a robust critique of Tony Blair's defence of the invasion of Iraq, questioning the prime minister's judgment, especially his response to claims made by the intelligence agencies. Asked about Mr Blair's admission yesterday that intelligence was not "hard fact", Mr Blix told the Guardian that was precisely how it was presented to the UN in the run-up to war. Britain and the US "were selling it as such", he said. Mr Blair's claims about his thought processes in the run-up to the war...

LONDON, Feb 28: Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Saturday he suspected the United States bugged his office and home in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, but had no hard evidence. Describing such behaviour as "disgusting", Mr Blix told Britain's Guardian newspaper in an interview: "It feels like an intrusion into your integrity in a situation when you are actually on the same side." His allegation came on top of a diplomatic row sparked this week when former British minister Clare Short said Britain bugged UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's office as London and Washington tried...

Chief UN weapons inspector believes he was bugged The United Nations spying row widened yesterday when its former weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told the Guardian he suspected both his UN office and his home in New York were bugged in the run-up to the Iraq war. In an exclusive interview, Mr Blix said he expected to be bugged by the Iraqis, but to be spied upon by the US was a different matter. He described such behaviour as "disgusting", adding: "It feels like an intrusion into your integrity in a situation when you are actually on the same side." He...

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Hans Blix's conversations were bugged by the U.S. or the U.K. whenever he was in Iraq while working as the chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported today, citing Australian officials familiar with their country's intelligence service.

'THEY ALSO SPIED ON BLIX' The UN bugging row has escalated with fresh allegations that former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix had his mobile phone tapped in Iraq. Another senior UN inspector, Richard Butler, has also revealed that he knew he was being bugged. The scandal was sparked by former minister Clare Short's claim that British agents spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the run-up to war in Iraq. She made the allegation after the case against GCHQ employee-turned whistleblower Katharine Gun was dramatically dropped on Wednesday. The Australian media are now reporting that the US, Britain and...