Religions > Atheism > Hans Blix: War in Iraq has Made Terrorism Worse, 'It has FailedMiserably'
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"pushbush" |
| Date: |
13 Oct 2004 11:46:15 AM |
| Object: |
Hans Blix: War in Iraq has Made Terrorism Worse, 'It has FailedMiserably' |
Hans Blix: War in Iraq has Made Terrorism Worse, 'It has Failed
Miserably'
The war in Iraq has put neither Iran nor North Korea off the idea of
nuclear weapons and has "stimulated terrorism", Hans Blix, the former
United Nations chief arms inspector in Iraq, said.
"You wouldn't expect any government to admit that they were wrong," Blix
told BBC radio. "I think, like everybody else, that it is good that
Saddam (Hussein) is gone. The world is better off without Saddam.
"But the world is not any safer. If this was meant to be a signal to
terrorists to stop their activities, it has failed miserably, it has
stimulated terrorism.
"And it doesn't stop proliferation. The Iranians and North Koreans, if
they are up to that, they are not stopped by it.
"So I don't think that any of the aims, except getting rid of Saddam
himself, have succeeded."
Blix poured scorn on British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for justifying
the invasion of Iraq, originally based on the premise that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction, on a now watered-down reason that Saddam
had the intention of producing such weaponry.
The chief US weapons hunter, Charles Duelfer, found in his 1,000-page
Iraq Survey Group report published last week that Saddam had destroyed
most of his chemical and biological weapons after his 1991 Gulf War
defeat and that his nuclear program had "progressively decayed".
But he said the Iraqi leader had hoped to renew his weapons quest if
sanctions were lifted.
"When you read Duelfer's report now you really wonder how dangerous he
was," Blix, a former Swedish foreign minister who led the UN hunt for
banned chemical and biological weapons in Iraq before the March 2003
invasion, told the BBC.
"OK, he claimed that there were programs to produce weapons of mass
destruction. But he also takes a step back from this and says there were
no documented programs.
"What he has got out of interrogation of various people who worked with
Saddam was rather that 'well he wanted to, that was probably his
intention' etc, but these are straws I think for Jack Straw to cling
to."
Blix has previously criticized British Prime Minister Tony Blair's
government for "hyping" pre-war intelligence about Iraq and denounced US
President George W. Bush's war as boosting terrorism and causing more
suffering than Saddam's dictatorial regime had.
Blair admitted in a Labour party speech earlier this month that pre-war
claims about Saddam's threat were wrong, but he and his closest ally
Bush have staunchly defended taking Iraq to war.
For more info:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1013-05.htm
© Copyright AFP
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