Blix Believed Iraq Threat Understated

In another major blow to the case that “Bush lied!” on Iraq new documents have revealed that Hans Blix believed that the US and UK government “understated” the threat from Iraq:

Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believed the Government’s controversial Iraq weapons dossier actually understated the case against Saddam Hussein, according to documents released today by the Foreign Office.

The papers released by the FO show that British officials at the United Nations in New York showed a draft of the dossier to Dr Blix in September 2002, two weeks before the final version was published.

A note from one official, Adam Bye, said that Dr Blix had liked the section on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as he believed that it did not exaggerate the facts.

According to the note, Dr Blix said that the dossier even risked understating Iraq’s ability to produce weapons of mass destruction – particularly the lethal anthrax virus.

He also described the claim that even if Iraq was able to acquire fissile material from abroad, it would still take at least two years to build a working nuclear bomb as “modest”.

So, is Blix now a liar too?

The whole case on this issue is based on the sloppiest logic imaginable. It is never a smart move to demand an absolute standard of proof to defend one’s country. The intelligence that both Bush and Blair had indicated a strong possibility that Iraq had WMDs and the capability of passing them to terrorists. There was contradictory information, but intelligence is not an exact science. Furthermore, the United States had been attacked with a form of highly weaponized anthrax and the culprit remains undetected to this day – only highlighting that Saddam Hussein could use such weapons against us and retain plausible deniability.

Had Saddam truly not possessed WMDs, he could have cooperated fully with the UN, come absolutely clean, and saved himself. Of course, had that happened the sanctions regime would have killed tens of thousands more Iraqis before crumbling entirely and Saddam would have had WMDs soon after.

One thought on “Blix Believed Iraq Threat Understated

  1. Jay, you are quoting an analysis of a report on Blix’s speech. Everything you report he said is untrue: Get the real document, and you’ll see that what he says is totally different from what you think he said. Your whole post is debunked and yes: BUSH LIED! He wasn’t mislead. HE misleaded others.

    Final point: it’s been 2 years since american officials have authentified the anthrax sent by post in the US as originated from the US:

    “The Baltimore Sun
    Saturday 12 April 2003

    U.S. Army scientists have reproduced the anthrax powder used in the 2001 mail attacks and concluded that it was made using simple methods, inexpensive equipment and limited expertise, according to government sources familiar with the work.

    The findings reinforce a theory that has guided the FBI’s 18-month-old investigation — that the mailed anthrax was probably produced by renegade scientists, not a military program such as Iraq’s.

    “It tends to support the idea that the anthrax came from a domestic source and probably not a state program,” said David Siegrist, a bioterrorism expert at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. “It shows you can have a fairly sophisticated product with fairly rudimentary methods.”

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