Monday, February 03, 2003

 
If Blix n' Bush Were Under Oath

The lie detector: People who contradict themselves are lying about something. This is a simple truth that attorneys have used for ages to crush the credibility of those who take the stand. Indeed, I wonder what we would find if we were able to put the Bush - Blix team on the stand and have our go at them. Let's take a look...


Blix vs. Blix

First Blix condemns Iraqi officials for their lack of cooperation:

“Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed [weapons inspections] as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance ... of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.”

and…

In his January 27 report, Blix complained that:

“Paragraph 9 of [UN Security Council] resolution 1441 states that this cooperation [by Iraq with inspectors] shall be, quote/unquote, active. It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of catch as catch can."

Then Blix praises Iraqi officials for their cooperation:

“The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt."

This “one exception” was outlined in Blix's interim report to the Security Council on December 19:

“Some sites were inspected last Friday — the Muslim day of rest. In one of them, the Iraqi staff were absent and a number of doors inside locked, with no keys available. The Iraqi side offered to break the doors open — while videotaping the event. However, they agreed with a suggestion that the doors in question could be [sealed] overnight and the offices inspected the next morning.”

and…

In December, he stated that:

“Access to sites has been prompt and assistance on the sites expeditious. It seems probably that a general instruction has been issued not in any way to delay or impede inspection...”

and…

In the January 27 report he says:

“We have ... had a great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable. Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences.”

and…

As a note, a January 24, AP article reported:

“The head of the UN nuclear agency will tell the Security Council next week that his inspectors need more time in Iraq, but that Saddam Hussein gets `quite satisfactory' grades for his cooperation."

Next, Blix downplays the significance of his findings as evidence of an active WMD program or arsenal:

Blix's report confirmed that the only discovery that can in any way be construed as “weapons of mass destruction” are 11 artillery warheads capable of carrying chemical agents. Inspectors said that the crated warheads, which were covered with bird droppings and dust, have never been loaded with such agents.

...and then sensationalizes the same findings using his own speculation as his primary source of evidence. Borrowing from the Bush fear-mongering repository, Blix boldly announced that these warheads:

“...could ... be the tip of a submerged iceberg”.


UN Inspectors vs. UN Inspectors

Blix touted a discrepancy in reported Chemical weapons as potential proof that Iraq has 1000 tons of chemical weapons stashed away. he reported that a document given to UN inspectors by the Iraqis:

“...gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War... The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi air force between 1983 and 1998; while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1000 tons.”

The implication was clear: There are probably 1000 tons of chemical agent hidden from us, waiting to be used.

But Scott Ritter, former top UN weapons inspector, points out that the viable existence of these agents is impossible:

“Through its inspection activities, UNSCOM [the precursor to the current weapons inspection body UNIMOVIC] obtained reasonable information concerning Iraq's chemical weapons (CW) activities from 1981 to 1987, with the exception of data on the use of CW against Iran. Iraq consistently refused to provide details to UNSCOM regarding such use, probably because of the political fallout that such an admission would cause.”

and…

“While this refusal prevented a full accounting of Iraqi CW, Iraq could not still have viable CW from that period because the chemical agent would have long since deteriorated... As an internal UNSCOM working paper noted, an Iraqi declaration of CW use during the war with Iran was not required for any meaningful verification: `Taking into consideration the conditions and the quality of CW-agents and munitions produced by Iraq at that time, there is no possibility of weapons remaining from the mid-1980s'.”

and…

“What was overlooked in 1998 [when UNSCOM inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq] was the extent to which UNSCOM had actually eliminated Iraq's CW capability. The Muthanna State Establishment and most of Iraq's associated production equipment had been destroyed, either through aerial bombardment during Operation Desert Storm [the US military's operational designation for the 1991 Gulf War] or under the supervision of UNSCOM inspectors. Iraq's stockpiles of CW agent had either been destroyed in the same manner or could be assumed to have deteriorated.”

Blix made no mention of this in either his December 19, 2002 or January 27, 2003 report.


Blix vs. the Bush Administration

Perhaps as a result of pressure from his European compatriots, Blix has stepped back from his pro-Bush lip service:

In a January 30 interview, Blix:

“...took issue with what he said were US Secretary of State Colin Powell's claims that the inspectors had found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving illicit materials within and outside of Iraq to prevent their discovery. He said that the inspectors had reported no such incidents."

and…

" …he had not seen convincing evidence that Iraq was sending weapons scientists to Syria, Jordan or any other country to prevent them from being interviewed. Nor had he any reason to believe, as President Bush charged in his State of the Union speech, that Iraqi agents were posing as scientists..."

and…

“ …he had seen no persuasive indications of Iraqi ties to al Qaeda, which Mr. Bush also mentioned in his speech.”

In short, the Bush Administration was lying, lying, and lying!


The Bush Administration vs. the Bush Administration

Interestingly, although practically every entity outside the Bush Administration provides evidence that the administration is a gaggle of hideous, fork-tongued, pathological liars, within the administration, there are rarely contradictions. Indeed, Karl has all his ducks in a row, practicing a liar's discipline not seen since the height of the Third Reich. The one exception is when Christie Whitman announces a rare, commonsense environmental policy only to be refuted by Ari Fleischer, "There was a miscommunication between Ms Whitman and President Bush…blah, blah, blah." Karl Rove: evil, dictatorial genius.

And then there is the final contradiction, The conclusion of both Blix's report and the IAEA's report is that there is no proof that Iraq possesses either an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction or an active program of WMD. The Bush and Blair Administrations, however, continue to claim an abundance of compelling evidence.

We're waiting.

See Also "Blix n' Bush: Guilty Until Proven Innocent" and "Seeds of Destruction: What Keeps Bush From Planting Evidence of WMD in Iraq?"

posted by Thomas Ball 12:10 PM