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Twenty years ago, the United States invaded Iraq, with then-president George W Bush describing it as a necessary act “to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” A few weeks later, Bush boasted that the war was a success because US troops had ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and routed his army. Bush landed on an American aircraft carrier and wore a Tom Cruise-style, Top Gun Air US Force outfit – thus orchestrating the most grandiose photo op in US history. “The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free,” he announced as he spoke beneath a...

The death of Alexander Litvinenko by radiological poisoning points to the possibility that the former Soviet spy may have been involved with Islamic terrorists in the preparation of tactical nuclear weapons for use in the jihad against the United States and its NATO allies. (snip) In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to suitcase nukes that were developed by U.S. and Soviet forces during the Cold War. Reliable sources, including Hans Blix of the United Nation, have confirmed that bin Laden purchased several of these devices from the Chechen rebels in 1996. According to Sharif al-Masri and other al...

United Nations - CIA-Iraq chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, whose report cast doubt on Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, was blocked from reaching that same conclusion in 1999-2000 by the Clinton White House. Before officially joining the CIA weapons hunt earlier this year, Duelfer spent more than 8 years hunting WMD at the United Nations, first for the noted Swede Rolf Ekeus, than the flamboyant Aussie Richard Butler. Butler, known for his repeated clashes with Iraq officials, was eventually forced out of his U.N. job by the French and Russian ambassadors in June...

Document ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf dated July 25 2000 is a report from an Iraqi Intelligence officer to different Iraqi Intelligence Directorates talking about information provided to them from a trusted source that works in the Associated Press (AP). The information is about the formation a newly formed UN weapons inspectors team called UNMOVIC. Translation of page 4 and 5 of ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf Republic of Iraq The Presidency of the Republic The Intelligence Service Date: 25/7/2000 Number: 6146 Secret To: 5th / 4th / 13th Directorates We were informed from one of our sources (the degree of trust in him is good) who works...

Insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country's north, Iraq told the United Nations in a letter appealing for help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad." Nearly 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the July 8 letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday. "Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state," Alhakim wrote, adding...

Nuclear scientists are being urged by the former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to develop thorium as a new fuel. Mr Blix says that the radioactive element may prove much safer in reactors than uranium. His enthusiasm is shared by some in the British nuclear establishment. Scientists at the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) have been encouraged by the government to help research on an Indian thorium-based reactor, and on a test programme in Norway. China is going for a revolutionary approach, devising a next-generation reactor which its supporters say will enable thorium to be used much more safely than...

Three giant cargo ships are being tracked by US and British intelligence on suspicion that they might be carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Each with a deadweight of 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes, the ships have been sailing around the world's oceans for the past three months while maintaining radio silence in clear violation of international maritime law, say authoritative shipping industry sources. The vessels left port in late November, just a few days after UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix began their search for the alleged Iraqi arsenal on their return to the country. Uncovering such a deadly...

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...

The accession of United States President Barack Obama has paved the way to a peaceful Iran solution, according to former United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix. Blix believes the deadlock between the West and Iran over nuclear capabilities was made worse by the "contempt" shown by the former US administration. He also said that the Iraq war was lost rather than won. Blix rose to prominence in 2000 when he was appointed by the UN to search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) poured cold water on the pretext...

A panel of former top international officials voiced hope Tuesday for a progress in settling the Iranian nuclear standoff after US President-elect Barack Obama takes office. Hans Blix, the former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, said he expects the new US administration to take a fresh approach to the deadlocked international talks on Iran's nuclear ambitions. "I hope that the Obama administration in the United States will be more imaginative" on the issue than its predecessors, Blix said after a session of the Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe. The forum, which includes former top officials and leading...

World history, as most Westerners interprets it, very much revolves around nations like France, Russia/Soviet, Britain, Italy and USA. These corners of the Earth, undeniably, have played major roles in the development of mankind. BUT, there seems to be a gap in the historical knowledge of several, otherwise well educated, Westerners concerning what took place during the period of approximately 1620-1720 on European soil. A lot of people seem aware that Britain at that time was not really, yet, the world's leading power and that France, Spain, Austria and Holland excersised much of influence over world affairs. However, during this...

Former United Nations' chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has challenged U.S. President George Bush's assertion that Iran poses a nuclear threat and the world should take pre-emptive action. Bush has recently renewed calls for a missile defence shield in Europe, issuing grim warnings that Iran could have a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe and the U.S. by 2015. Blix, who is the executive chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and headed the search for WMDs in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion, acknowledged Iran has a nuclear enrichment program and has long-range missile capability. But he told...

TORSHAVN, Faeroe Islands - Former President Clinton shook hands with locals and stayed on message Monday during a visit to this North Sea archipelago, proof that no corner of the globe is too obscure to be beyond the notice of a determined campaigner. During his one-day visit to the wind-swept islands located halfway between Iceland and Norway, Clinton put in a plug for his wife, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. "No one has voted yet but I think she has a good chance," Clinton told reporters. Asked whether he believed the United States was ready for a woman president,...

<p>ABC reported on their website blog about 20 min ago that United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York this morning, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m. New York police and fire officials said federal authorities had not notified them of any problem at the U.N. building, as of 11 a.m. A U.N. spokesperson said a statement would be issued shortly.</p>

On the 62nd annivesary of the United States using the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, chairman of the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, told Swedish Radio News he believes there is a continued threat that nuclear weapons might be used. Blix says the US, along with Britain, China and Russia, are all developing new nuclear weapons. However Blix also points out that the Unites States is showing a tendency towards diplomatic solutions, citing the American government’s willingness to cooperate more with the United Nations regarding North Korea.

Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday the United States, Europe and the UN Security Council are ''humiliating'' Iran by demanding that it suspend uranium enrichment before any negotiations and then dictating its rewards. 'The first incentive, I think, is to sit down with them in a direct talk rather than saying to them 'you do this, thereafter we will sit down at a table and tell you what you get for it,''' Blix said. ''That's getting away from a humiliating neo-colonial attitude to a more normal (one).'' ''People have their own pride whether you like them or...

Before attacking me, read the entire article and my comments on it. Before starting to read the article, read the sentence above.Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix warned on Thursday that global warming was a greater threat than weapons of mass destruction, and advocated promoting peaceful nuclear technology around the world. "The threat against the global environment and global warming are a greater threat than weapons of mass destruction," he told journalists on the final day of a visit to Egypt promoting his commission's report on reducing weapons of mass destruction worldwide. "It is of utmost imperative that the whole...

Swedish researchers claim to have found proscribed weapons in Iraq A group of Swedish researchers, travelling to Iraq without the knowledge of the Swedish government, is announcing that they have found missiles for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in a house in Baghdad. The finds will be presented in a forthcoming production by World Television Network (WTN). The information supposedly came to Swedish WTN reporter Maria Wera Cedrell, who has worked in Iraq for 15 years, through an Iraqi scientist. She was assisted by former arms inspector and WMD expert Åke Sellström from Swedish Defence Research Agency (Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut, FOI)....

Former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Wednesday described the United States-led invasion of Iraq as a "pure failure" that had left the country worse off than under the rule of Saddam Hussein. In unusually harsh comments to Danish newspaper Politiken, the diplomatic Swede said the US government had ended up in a situation in which neither staying nor leaving Iraq were good options. "Iraq is a pure failure," Blix was quoted as saying. "If the Americans pull out, there is a risk that they will leave a country in civil war. At the same time, it doesn't...

The war in Iraq is a "pure failure" that has left Iraqis in a worse state than when they lived under Saddam Hussein, former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said in comments published Wednesday. "Iraq is a pure failure," Blix was quoted as saying in the Danish newspaper Politiken. "If the Americans pull out, there is a risk that they will leave a country in civil war. At the same time it doesn't seem that the United States can help to stabilize the situation by staying there." Blix, in comments that were seen as unusually critical for the...